


The Traitors

by LucyCrewe11 (Raphaela_Crowley)



Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Tragedy, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Family Drama, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Love Story, Magic, No Incest, Peter And Susan Are Twins, Romance, Snow Queen - Freeform, They Were All Born In Narnia, Tragedy, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 38
Words: 168,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25252702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raphaela_Crowley/pseuds/LucyCrewe11
Summary: Just one last time... One more big deception, one more crisis of conscience, and Edmund, his cousin, and two others will be freed for ever.It seemed so simple, so final...That is, until the day he met Lucy and started to question everything...
Relationships: Edmund Pevensie/Lucy Pevensie
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	1. Stowaways On The Dawn Treader

**Author's Note:**

> (written August through November of 2011)
> 
> Set in an AU Narnia, mostly an Edmund/Lucy story (even though Lucy doesn't actually appear in this first chapter, she shows up in the next one).

They awoke stiff and sore, in a berry bush by the Terebinthian harbor.

Edmund sat up and stretched, peering over the top of the bush at the docks.

His cousin Eustace, however, was pretending not to be awake at all, his eyes still closed and his body still curled up in a fetal position on the bed of leaves he'd claimed for himself.

"Eustace, get up." He shook his arm. "We'll miss the boat."

Eustace muttered something that sounded like, "Against boats, contact consul..."

"I know you aren't really asleep," growled Edmund, impatiently.

Eustace made a very irritating smacking noise with his lips and scrunched his eyelids up even more tightly.

Oh, that does it, thought Edmund.

Grinning slyly to himself, knowing he could beat this, he plucked two berries from the bush and held them tightly in his left hand. Then, with his right, he grabbed onto his cousin's ear and dug his fingernails into it as hard as he could; he didn't actually break the skin (not this time), but in a minute, Eustace would think he had, which was good enough.

Squashing the berries, Edmund smeared the bright scarlet-coloured juice all over Eustace's ear.

"Ouch!" Eustace reacted to his cousin's fingernails and put a hand to his now-released ear. Feeling something wet and sticky, he bolted upright and brought his stained fingers to his face. "Oh..." He immediately started hyperventilating. "You're sick, Cousin, you need help."

"Relax, Useless," Edmund said, mispronouncing Eustace's name on purpose; "it's berry juice."

"It's definitely not blood...?" Eustace, a neat-freak and something of a germ-phobic as well, never did tolerate the sight of blood; but, aside from the fact that he hated anything that messed up his clothes or stained his skin, berry juice didn't particularly frighten him.

"No, I don't have time to seriously maim you now," he reminded him. "We've got a ship to get on."

"When this whole mess is over," Eustace said, getting up while trying to wipe berry juice off of his ear and fingers with a leaf but managing only to aggravate the problem and rub it in deeper, "I want to go to Calormen. It seems like the least phony place I ever heard of. I might have quite a decent time there."

Edmund laughed. "The Calormenes would eat you alive."

"They haven't got cannibals in Calormen," said the ever practical Eustace.

"That isn't what I meant."

"Well what do you want to do, when we're through? I mean, this is the last time. She _promised_."

"Not that her promises stand for much," Edmund pointed out, "but when it's over, I'd like to go to Cair Paravel and train as a knight."

"Cair Paravel wouldn't take _you_ ," Eustace said. In spite of himself, he didn't say it meanly, exactly, only as if stating a fact.

Edmund knew his cousin spoke the truth. It wasn't only him they wouldn't take; it was _all_ of them: Tumnus, the faun who worked alongside them in their finest, darkest hours; Ammi, the most cunning girl you ever met, and definitely of noble-blood of some kind, though they were never sure which; and himself and Eustace, the two cruelest con-artists in the world. None of them would ever be accepted in any position even remotely near Cair Paravel.

Edmund's hopes of being a knight were nothing but wishful-thinking; his dream was to change his name, to spend his days praying no one ever recognized him and called him out for his crimes, of which there had been plenty.

In truth, he would be better off in Calormen when this was over, when this one last scheme was completed and they were all granted their long over-due freedom. But he wasn't like Eustace, he didn't _want_ to be in Calormen; it wasn't his cup of tea. He wanted somewhere with the dewy slopes Tumnus was always going on about; somewhere with dense forests or beautiful shores of soft sand that ended at the ocean.

Frankly, he thought the second Eustace, who had never been to Calormen (Edmund himself had been, though only once) got a whiff of the odor of the Tashbaan he'd been longing to visit, smelling the hot bodies of the sweaty horses and slaves and piles of trash, he'd pack his bags and set a course for the north, too; but for right now, it didn't suit him to squash all of his cousin's dreams entirely.

He needed him motivated, so they could get through this and finally let their real lives, whatever was left of them, begin.

"Where is that goaty-chap?" demanded Eustace.

"Eustace, we've known and worked with Tumnus for years, _when_ are you going to stop referring to him as 'that goaty-chap'?" Edmund wanted to know.

He shrugged.

"Come on, stand up straight. We've got to wait for his signal." Edmund screwed up his eyes and strained his ears.

Sure enough, there came the sound of a pipe-like musical instrument playing a few low, very distinctive notes. Followed by a pair of rather hairy hands sticking out from behind a nearby wooden board, formed together to look like the letter T.

It was the sort of signal some children used when taking a break in the middle of hide and seek, but to Edmund, Eustace, and their two compatriots, it did not mean 'time out', it meant something else entirely. It stood for Traitor, which, however much they bickered and disagreed amongst each other regarding just about every possible subject, they all had to admit they were, had been almost their whole lives.

What would it be like, Edmund wondered, when he was allowed to make his own choices? Would he automatically be a changed, reformed person once he was free of the force that currently enslaved himself and the others who were not his friends but the closest thing he'd ever be likely to have to friends (or a family, for that matter)? Or would he still hate himself? Would he be a lout and menace to society? Or a hermit, perhaps?

"Eustace, give me the rings." Edmund held out his hand.

"Why?" he asked sulkily.

"Because I said so. I've led us through this several times and I haven't failed yet."

Begrudgingly, Eustace crouched down and pulled two shinny objects, one green and one yellow, out of his pack and handed them over to Edmund.

The rings tucked securely into the pocket of his breeches, Edmund picked up his own pack, making sure Eustace was carrying everything else, and went to meet Tumnus.

The T had meant the coast was clear, no one would see them sneaking onto the relatively small dragon-shaped ship, The Dawn Treader.

Edmund would have gladly paid for passage for himself, Tumnus, and Eustace-he certainly had enough gold to do so-but there was one little problem. The gold coins he possessed were made of white-gold and had the snowflake crest of Queen Jadis of Charn, the White Witch, on them. And as Terebinthia was Narnian-owned, they tended not to like Charnians.

Edmund wasn't a Charnian by birth; not even Ammi, the only one of them who could possibly have had any actual Charn blood in their veins, really was. But somehow he doubted that would matter to a half-Telmarine half-Narnian like Lord Drinian, the captain of the only ship currently bound for the small, seldom-used trading post at the fridges of the land-mass Narnia's Western Woods were located on, would care about such a technicality.

He'd tried to bribe a crew member called Pittencream, showing him the white-gold coin, thinking he would be taken in easily enough (he sort of reminded Edmund of an older version of Eustace, and his cousin never turned down so much as an easy copper coin in his life); but that hadn't worked out and Tumnus had had to accidentally on purpose get Pittencream drunk in a local tavern the night before so he would have a hangover today and miss the ship, thus not being able to point them out to his captain for what they were.

Stowaways were one thing. They might still get to where they wanted to be as unwanted but inevitable passengers. Whereas, the truth would get them thrown over-board, and the _whole_ truth would get them a one-way ticket to a gallows somewhere in the East.

So sneaking on board and lying low until they were far out at sea and there was no turning back was the easiest method of getting themselves to the Western Woods and the Lantern-Waste, hands down.

Once they were on deck, Edmund looked around for the best possible hiding places. Tumnus, being a faun, was easily hid in plain sight; no one would question a Narnian half-goat wandering the ship so long as he kept his hands full at all times and always looked like he was doing something along with the crew. Eustace, who never could learn the meaning of being inconspicuous, was more problematic.

He wished it was Ammi with them instead, and Eustace back in at the ice castle in Charn. No one would ever question Ammi because she seemed so proper and lady-like and did a flawless mimic of a Narnian accent that could have fooled King Frank himself. Whereas it had taken nearly five years for Eustace to figure out how not to roll his tongue on the letter E when they had business in Narnia.

Maybe there were curtains or stacks of laundry in the main cabin under the poop deck he could hide Eustace in, if only he could get his cousin not to breathe like a talking hippopotamus with allergies. Darn the brat's claustrophobic tendencies!

"I'm going to look in there," Edmund said, glaring at Eustace who was peering nervously over the ship's edge, probably already getting sea-sick, not to mention unwittingly alerting others to their presence on board. "You want to come here and...guard...something?"

"Oh!" Eustace perked up, running over to him. "Yes. Good idea, Cousin. Very...uh...logical."

"Here, guard it with your life." Edmund only owned one sword, and he knew Eustace had no idea how to use it. "I'll be right back."

Of course, Eustace fumbled with the hilt of the sword and dropped it onto the deck, causing a clamor. Picking it up again, he said, "I've got it, I've got it. Don't worry."

He winced. This was probably all just a cruel game to Jadis. And it really didn't help matters, having an incompetent accomplice.

Returning from the cabin, Edmund quietly announced that there was one somewhat wide space under the bunk, covered by a thick velvet blanket (they must have a rich passenger on board, he thought, or else the captain does himself a bit too well) which would conceal them from prying eyes. The only catch was they'd be a bit cramped. They wouldn't have both been able to fit at all if Eustace hadn't been such a puny person.

"I don't like it," Eustace commented, when his cousin showed the space to him. "We'll barely be able to breathe."

"It's this or a barrel on deck." Edmund folded his arms across his chest.

"A barrel?" Eustace sounded insulted, as if it were below his dignity to be stuffed into a common _barrel_.

"Pretend you're in a traveling circus," Edmund suggested, holding the velvet quilt a little higher up.

"A _circus_?" That seemed to disgust him even more than the idea of a barrel.

Fed up, Edmund shoved him. "Oh, just get in there!"

Things were going according to plan, even when the Telmarine-Narnian lord (Caspian, Edmund heard his attendants call him) came into the cabin. Eustace for the first time in his life was managing not to snort like a pig while he breathed, and not even the keen-eared Drinian, who was in there talking to Caspian, pouring over some sea-chart, seemed to suspect them.

But, then, when they'd been at sea for about six hours and Eustace was beginning to feel cramped and cross, their cover was blown to smithereens.

Drinian was saying something about uncharted waters being home to sea-serpents when Eustace let out a snort of contempt.

"Eustace!" He covered his cousin's nose and mouth, taking no notice of his desperate squirming to breathe freely again, but it was too late, the velvet was already being lifted.

"What in the world are you doing here?" Caspian laughed. He didn't know who they were, but they couldn't be too much younger than himself, and they didn't look dangerous.

Drinian was not so forgiving. "Stowaways, eh?"

Edmund smiled weakly. Eustuce just scowled and inhaled sharply.

"I hope you don't have any plans in Terebinthia tomorrow," said Caspian, shaking his head. "This ship is headed for the mainland of Narnia; the Western port to be exact."

"I'd wager they already knew that," Drinian said, glaring at them suspiciously.

A splattering of light rain hit the deck window outside. Eustace moaned and muttered something about hating storms.

"What storm?" Caspian glanced out the portal. "I do not see anything."

"You're lucky we're not in the practice of throwing our stowaways to the sharks," Drinian stated. "You could be in the belly of a whale by now."

"Or a sea-serpent," Edmund couldn't resist adding sarcastically.

"Whales can't swallow humans. See, their throats are arranged so-" Eustace began before his cousin's elbow hit him in the gut, making him stop.

"It seems, Drinian," Caspian sighed, reaching for something at the back of the cabin, "as though we've got ourselves two extra crew members."

"You mean three," Eustace blurted.

"Eustace!" Edmund couldn't believe his stupid cousin had just sold Tumnus out like that. No, actually, he _could_ believe it, and that made him even angrier over the matter.

Caspian pressed the object into Edmund's hand. It was a mop. Drinian handed Eustace a bucket of brown water. "Have fun, boys. Welcome a-board."

Even elbow-high in dirty mop water, scrubbing the deck while a couple of real crew members got to take a break, Edmund had to admit he felt a slight twinge of relief.

Sure, they'd been discovered. Drinian was not very friendly; Caspian was _too_ friendly. Tumnus was on his hands and goat-knees scrubbing with the rest of them, his overt Narnian heratige no longer enough to keep his cover now that Eustace had blown it to pieces. But at least, all things considered, they weren't in the brig in chains, or walking the plank, and they weren't back in Terebinthia passed the allotted time where Jadis could accuse them of being disobedient cowards.

No, for better or for worse, lucky as they were going to get, they were Lantern Waste bound.


	2. The Lantern Waste Village Fair

Every year in the Lantern Waste, without fail, there was a talent competition in the village, as part of a seasonal fair. The fair was a really big deal to most of the Narnians who lived in the Western Woods; for merchants and common-folk looking for work, it was a chance to show off their wares and talents, and for the gentle-bred Narnian wealthies, especially the young people, it was a delightful source of entertainment.

Lucy P. Ramandu had attended the fair every year since she was two, and never once had she missed the talent competition. She never missed that, in particular, because her two older siblings, Peter and Susan, preformed in it. And although they did the same act every single year, no one ever seemed to tire of the show they put on.

Furthermore, visitors from other parts of Narnia were not uncommon during the fair, some even from as far East as the country's splendid capitol, Cair Paravel. Once, they'd even played host to King Frank and Queen Helen themselves, and they too had marveled over Lucy's amazing siblings.

Peter and Susan, you see, were twins. And however little alike they looked (Peter was fair-headed, aqua-eyed, and deep-chested, whereas Susan had long black hair, pale skin, and a more delicate build), it became apparent around a very tender age that they were unusually connected.

They seemed to be able to hear each others thoughts, to feel what the other felt at the very moment they were feeling it.

The funniest example of this, Lucy personally thought, was when Susan had started to pluck her eyebrows at the age of twelve and Peter's yelps echoed through the mansion they called their home. He'd come charging into the room with one hand to his left brow, scowling. Susan had blushed apologetically and shrugged; there was nothing she could do about it, and as far as she was concerned, a unibrow was out of the question.

Not, of course, that it was always funny; sometimes, it was anything but.

One time Peter had gotten himself into a fight with another boy, something about the boy bumping into him and then demanding an apology, deliberately provoking him.

Because Peter had barreled into the fight without thinking the matter through, he took the beating of a lifetime, but it was far worse for Susan.

He had given no thought to his sister (though he did think he heard her yell, "Stop!" once, only he didn't see her in the crowd when he looked up and mistakenly believed he'd only imagined her voice) until he limped in the back door, through the servants' quarters, and found poor Susan huddled in the hearth, crying in pain.

"Really," she had whispered hoarsely, looking up at him with two invisible black eyes that matched his real ones exactly, "is it that hard just to walk away?"

He held her and comforted her, in turn also comforting himself by default, promising never again to get into another fight.

"Promise you won't become a knight, either," Susan had whispered unexpectedly.

"Why can't I become a knight?" he'd asked, feeling a dreadful sadness over the loss of a precious dream.

"In training, you fight," Susan had explained practically. "If you get yourself hurt, _I'll_ be hurt. And if you die...Peter, I'm scared I'll die, too; you can't prove or promise I will not. Please, take up a simple trade and don't go into knight training. I beg of you, do it for me, as a brother."

"But, Susan..."

"Don't kill me, Peter...please..."

It was the 'please' that trapped him. If she had cried, like she had been crying since the second he walked in the door, it would have hurt him, but her serenity was even more frightening and heart-wrenching. If she truly believed his training would bring her to harm, begging him to give up _all_ fighting for the sake of her safety, how could he go up against her?

"I promise, Su," he swore. "I will never fight again, or enter into knight training."

"You can always take up archery like me," she'd suggested.

Peter had shaken his head sadly. "You know I'm no good at that, even with all your help."

"But, if _I'm_ good at it, then surely, you..."

He clicked his tongue sadly. "I don't think it works that way."

It had been difficult for Peter to find a trade he liked and was gifted at. He worked part-time for a while as a sword-maker's assistant, but it proved to be too much of a reminder of what he was missing, as well as unnecessary temptation. He didn't need the money-he was the only son of Duke Coriakin, a full blooded star of high nobility, after all-so he quit. Then, when he thought he was going to go mad from doing nothing all day, lounging around his father's mansion in a depression he pretended he didn't have in order to keep a smile on the face of his favourite sister, Lucy, the local physician announced that he was looking for an assistant.

When Peter first announced that he was thinking about a career in medicine, Susan had not objected, but she did look a little doubtful. It took years to become a doctor, and even if Lucy hadn't seen how low and unable to stick to things Peter had become as of late, _she_ had, and she'd worried. It was easy for her to worry, because every dark thought, every bad feeling he had during his depression, echoed in her brain like someone was driving nails into it. But, physician training seemed to suit Peter in a way no one could have foreseen. He studied diligently, had a comforting way of speaking to the sick and injured that couldn't be denied, and in time the physician left him in charge of everything from setting broken bones to distributing medicines and herbs to the patients.

And now Lucy, at age fifteen, watched, for what felt like the millionth time, her well reported on doctor brother and her more frivolous, dainty, lady of leisure sister preform their act on stage.

Peter was blindfolded, and Susan was hidden behind various objects. She told him how to locate her without saying a word; no matter how well hidden she was, even once or twice off-stage in the crowd, he always found her. Then they switched, and the act was reversed. Peter was hidden behind a cardboard door in the middle of the stage. Susan was blindfolded and barefooted, and spun around twice, and several shards of broken glass were spread out in her way. Peter knew where all the glass was and mentally passed on silent instructions for the best way to go around them.

When she reached the cardboard door, Susan laughed and ripped off her blindfold. "Found you!" she cried, swinging the door open.

The audience applauded. Lucy squeezed the hand of her adopted little sister, Gael, and smiled.

"They're very good, aren't they, Lucy?" Gael whispered. This was her first year at the fair, her first year living in Coriakin's mansion as well. Before, she'd lived in Beruna, with her biological father.

"Yes, very," she agreed.

"Susan looks so beautiful in stage make-up," sighed Gael. "I didn't think she _could_ look any prettier."

Lucy sighed, too. Normally, it didn't bother her when people complimented her elder sister, since it happened all the time, but lately, she had become aware of the fact that perhaps in spite of being family, she didn't share any resemblance to her. It wasn't impossible. Aslan knew, Peter was Susan's _twin_ and he shared none of her features. So what chance did she have of ever looking anything like her?

"Master Peter seems a bit tired this year, his eyes are strained-looking." A lady faun with long curly brown hair came up behind them, carrying a basket of fresh oranges.

"He was up late last night, trying to find a cure for something the baby down the road had," Lucy explained, turning to her. "May I have an orange for Gael, Clara?"

The faun smiled. "Help yourself."

Lucy let go of Gael's hand and plucked her an orange from the top.

Clara was one of their own servants, as well as one of Lucy's closest friends and confidants. They often spoke of Peter, and how tired or thin or-occasionally-well he looked, and it made Lucy feel less alone to have someone to talk about her beloved older brother's fluctuating health with. Susan never spoke of Peter when he wasn't in the room with them, perhaps because she knew everything about him and was afraid of saying too much. Or else, maybe, she just didn't care, so long as he wasn't in the east training to be a knight.

Glancing back up towards the stage just as all the glass had been cleaned up and Susan had finished blowing air-kisses to everybody, Lucy noticed two bewildered-looking boys she had never seen before standing there, gaping out at the audience.

They looked as if they had stumbled onto the stage by accident (as a matter of fact, they _had_ ). The older boy was dark-haired like Susan and only maybe a year or two older than Lucy; the other one was a year _younger_ than Lucy, perhaps, with light hair, like Peter's, and a sour, holier-than-thou expression on his otherwise unmistakably mortified face.

The two boys were, of course, Edmund and Eustace.

Less than two days prior to the fair, the Dawn Treader had docked. Caspian wasn't going to the Lantern Waste, so he bid them a polite, rather familiar goodbye, as if they were his friends rather than two stowaways who had spent most of their time on board during whatever mandatory chores the rest of the crew hadn't felt like doing. Drinian didn't even look at them after they came ashore, so they assumed it was safe to guess that their debt to him had been worked off.

They'd walked for a few hours before getting a ride on a wagon with a group of satyrs who took a liking to Tumnus and said they were headed for the Lantern Waste at any rate, so why not take along a few extra passengers.

Unfortunately, no one mentioned to Edmund, Eustace, or Tumnus the reason they were going that way, and as it had been ages since any of them had last been near the Western Woods, they just plain forgot about the fair.

Jolted by the crowd, not knowing which way to go, Eustace complaining every step of the way, the two boys-Tumnus only a few steps behind them-found themselves on stage.

Considering Edmund put on a rather good performance almost everywhere Jadis sent him, one that had everybody fooled, it was a little odd that he found himself uncomfortable in front of crowds of people, all waiting for him to do something.

Eustace was even worse; he looked like a deer in the swinging lantern lights tied to a wagon. "What do we do now, Cousin?" he whispered loudly.

Thinking it was part of a comedy act, someone snickered in the crowd.

Edmund reached back and pulled Tumnus out behind them.

Clara went red. "He's very handsome," she whispered to Lucy, "isn't he?"

"When is he going to tell a joke?" Gael wondered aloud. "The puny blonde one isn't all that funny."

"Um, folks," Edmund began to address everyone, wondering how best to explain that this was a mistake, that they didn't have any intentions of being in their little rustic village production.

Eustace, awkwardly, starting humming and rocking back and forth.

"Hey." Edmund whipped his head round to glare at him. "Stop that."

Clara and Lucy giggled. Gael smiled uncertainly and began peeling her orange.

"Is he going to sing?" someone cried out.

"No!" said Edmund.

"Come on," an old man wearing a big sunhat shouted up, "don't be shy!"

"Shy?" Eustace looked offended; and worse, he started to sing a few bars of a song he was making up more or less on the spot. "Uh...When I was a little lad," he sang, off-key. "...Um, mother used to tell me..."

"What the devil are you doing?" Edmund hissed at him.

"Improvising," Eustace told him out of the corner of his mouth. "So we don't look stupid."

Edmund slapped his forehead. If Jadis was watching him now, he hoped she was enjoying this, because he was never letting her put him through another fumbling town-introduction again; if she didn't set them free like she promised, he'd kill himself.

"This wasn't part of the plan..." The last time they'd done this, they'd introduced themselves in a tavern, to people who were half-drunk anyway and had no choice but to like them, and, moreover, they hadn't had to _sing_.

Eustace kept singing. "Used to say...don't stay out too late, and wash behind your ears..."

Gael laughed. "Oh, I get it, he's bad on _purpose_."

"I hope so," Clara whispered, still keeping her eyes on Tumnus who stood as still as a stone statue behind the singing boy.

"Take it, Cousin," Eustace said.

"I'm going to kill you," Edmund mouthed. To the crowd he sort of muttered, "All you young dryads, stay in school."

A little dryad holding a school book made a, "Humph!" noise.

"Uh, musical instrument solo!" Edmund grabbed Tumnus, who always had his little pipe-like instrument on his person and was the only one of the Traitors (including Ammi) who was musically gifted.

Tumnus started playing, and a few people clapped, confused as to why he was so good when the rest of his band was so dreadful.

Clara stared at him with a dreamy expression on her face. Lucy rolled her eyes and clapped along with everyone else. She noticed that the dark-haired boy looked genuinely upset and desperate for his fifteen minutes of fame to be up, and felt sorry for him.

"All right, that's enough." Edmund grabbed Tumnus when the faun seemed to be getting a little too into his performance, closing his eyes and just going crazy with his music. "Good afternoon, everybody!"

They stumbled off the stage and tried to make themselves scarce.

Lucy left Gael with Clara and decided to go and look for them. When she found them behind the stage, Edmund had his hands over his face and Eustace's arms were folded across his chest.

"Hallo," she said.

"Hello there," Tumnus, trying to wipe his own spittle off of the mouthpiece of his instrument with his thumb, greeted her.

"I'm Lucy." She reached into the pocket of the brown checkered smock she was wearing over her dark purple dress and pulled out a handkerchief. "Here, keep it, you need it more than I do."

Tumnus took it from her gratefully and used it to clean the instrument properly.

Edmund took his hands off of his face and looked up.

This girl, Lucy, couldn't be much younger than himself, but he thought she still had the wide, innocent blue eyes of a small child as well as a matching round face.

From the stage, they heard someone announce that Peter and Susan had won.

"Don't feel bad," Lucy said kindly. "They win every year."

"Were we as bad as I know we were?" Edmund asked, grinding his teeth.

Lucy paused uncomfortably, for she wanted to be truthful, yet not too hard on them. "Well, honestly, you were, but I'm sure with practice you'll never do it again. You were just caught off guard. And, anyway, I think my little sister Gael liked it. So did our friend Clara."

Edmund chuckled sardonically. "Great."

"So what did those two win for?" Eustace demanded. "I missed it."

Lucy shifted from foot to foot. "They can talk to each other without speaking, it's pretty impressive."

"Fakes," Eustace coughed into his palm.

"They're not," said Lucy truthfully. "I know; I live with them. Peter and Susan are my elder brother and sister."

"I'm afraid you'll have to excuse my cousin," Edmund told her. "He always has both feet in his mouth."

"Did you come for the contest?" Lucy wanted to know.

Edmund smiled. "Oh, us? No, naturally not, as I'm sure you could tell."

"Are you...merchants?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm not selling anything. But, I guess you could say I'm here on business."

"If you're looking for work," Lucy offered, "my brother runs the physician's clinic, and he's always a little short on helpers."

"I'll keep that in mind," Edmund lied. "Anyway, I'm Edmund Maugrim," -his eyes shifted over to his cousin- "and that lark over there is Eustace Clarence Scrubb, if anyone so deserves the name. The faun's our chaperone."

"Do you have a place to stay?"

"Not yet," he told her. "But, maybe you can help me find someone. We're looking for the family of a fallen star, Coriakin Ramandu. He lives around here, doesn't he?"

"Yes, of course." Lucy's face lit up. "I'm his daughter. We all live in the big mansion."

"What mansion?" There was more than one mansion in the area.

"The one on the hill." She pointed to the grandest of the buildings, made of jade and silver perfectly-cut stones, seated atop a green hill of beautiful, even lawns. It had large towers, making it look almost more like a small castle than a regular noble's house.

"Oh, _that_ mansion _._ " Edmund gaped at it. The last star family Jadis had forced them to locate had lived in a modest two-story building on Galma. It was true that they had had expensive furniture and paintings galore inside, so it was obvious that stars were wealthy, but Lucy's mansion was on a whole new scale entirely.

"Are you a friend of Father's?"

That was when it hit him hard; this friendly girl in front of them might just be the one they had to harm. It was best if he kept himself from caring too much; better to look at it as a lucky break. The sooner she trusted him and formed a close enough attachment that she'd follow him when he left, the sooner their work would be done. It was like leading a particularly sweet animal over to the butcher, you didn't _think_ about doing it, you just did it and tried your hardest never to recall where the meat that kept you alive through the winter had come from.

"Not really." Edmund shrugged. "But we've heard a great deal about him."

"I'm afraid if you're looking for employment at the mansion you aren't likely to find it. Clara does all the sweeping up and the laundry, and the Dufflepuds do everything else, keeping the grounds and all."

"Dufflepuds?"

"Little one-footed dwarfs," Lucy explained. "They've worked for my father as long as I can remember. They're kind of stupid, but they mean well...sometimes, I think."

"Blimey!" said Eustace, pointing at two large dapple-gray horses thundering up in their direction. "Look at those beasts."

"They're war horses!" Lucy cried with delight, springing forward. "That means Lord Perry and Lord Alexander have come back!"

"Who?" Tumnus crinkled his brow.

"Oh, they come through here every once in a while. They're twins, like Peter and Susan, only both boys."

"They don't sport any Narnian banners," Edmund noticed, unable to resist examining their armour and weapons even from a distance.

"That's because they work for the Archenland army," she said.

Perry and Alexander slipped off their horses and headed over towards Lucy. Perry seemed excited to see her and gave her a big hug, exclaiming something about how much she'd grown since they'd seen her last. Alexander, though, was more standoffish.

They looked vaguely alike, though not as much as twins usually do; they were pretty easy to tell apart in spite of the fact that they both had dark hair and gray eyes. Perry looked more like a growing man, with a square clean-shaved jaw not quite free of all stubble. Alexander was slighter, though he stood straighter than his brother, and far more boyish with softer features. When Alexander finally spoke, his voice proved higher-pitched than his brother's as well.

"I've missed you both so much." Lucy beamed at them, taking both of their hands. "Come, enjoy the rest of the fair with me and Clara, and then we can have supper at the mansion." She looked over her shoulder at Edmund, feeling sorry for leaving him out. "Edmund, you could come as well."

"No, that's all right," he said, "now that I know where Coriakin lives, I'll pay a visit later. We'd best go and get ourselves settled into an inn."

"But if you want to speak with Father, why don't you stay with us? We've plenty of room."

"A generous offer," said Tumnus graciously, "but not at this time."

"What did you do that for?" Eustace demanded, watching Lucy and the gray-eyed twins walking away. "She would have taken us right into the star's house and-"

"Don't be an idiot," Edmund hissed, pressing his hand over his cousin's mouth. "And not so loud!"

"Edmund's right," Tumnus whispered, leaning close to Eustace so no one could over-hear. "We can't just rely on one girl's instant trust. She will back down the second someone tells her to, you'll see. We're strangers here, remember?"

"But after tonight," Edmund reminded them, "we're heroes." He paused. "Well, at least one of us, anyway."

"What will it be this time?" sighed Eustace. "Dragon attack or rabid wolf raid?"

"Dragon," Edmund decided, looking both ways. "It's time you bucked up and _did_ something, Useless."

"But I don't _like_ laying siege to villages." Eustace stomped his foot. "I want to be the hero this time."

Tumnus laughed. "You're a terrible hero; Ed is better at the whole saving damsels in distress thing. He kind of scares me when he plays the evil wolf, though; a little too intense; too much intelligent Talking beast, not enough wild animal."

"Besides," Edmund added, "you are a very good dragon." He pulled the yellow ring out of his breast pocket and pressed it into his cousin's palm. "Here, but don't use it till dark."


	3. Dragon Attack

Edmund hoped that Eustace was keeping a sharp eye out, because, if he wasn't, it would be extremely easy for his cousin to miss his signal.

Crouched behind a tavern, in a corner alley chosen with great care, he lifted his hands up to form a T like the one Tumnus had used to alert them to the absence of the crew watching over the Dawn Treader.

"Come on," Edmund muttered, shaking his head, keeping his hands up for as long as he dared. "Don't funk this, Eustace."

If it was hard being a con-artist, it was doubly hard when your, for lack of a more appropriate term, sidekick was a whinny little buffoon. Maybe that was the witch's plan all along; pair him up with an ass so he would mess up and never be free.

What if she was watching right now?

Nervously, Edmund glanced over his shoulder and strained his eyes, searching for any signs of green mist or out of season icy surfaces. Finding none, he exhaled, willing himself to be less paranoid.

"Come on, Eustace." He ground his teeth. "I'm right here. Come and get me."

There came the flapping sound of leathery dragon wings, and, sure enough, a large golden dragon who, if anyone cared to look closely enough, happened to have the same eyes and brows and sullen facial expression as Eustace Clarence Scrubb, shot into view.

"Cutting it a little close," hissed Edmund, though he wasn't sure if his cousin could actually hear him over the sound of his own beating wings.

Knowing his task, Eustace swooped down and snatched up his cousin in his fore-claws, lifting him high into the air.

"Goodness gracious me!" screamed Tumnus, exiting the tavern at exactly the right moment. "That dragon has caught someone!" He pointed up at Eustace, circling round in the sky above.

Could he sound any more theatrical? Edmund thought, rolling his eyes, wishing the faun wouldn't lay it on _quite_ so thickly.

"Somebody _do_ something!" cried Tumnus, pressing the back of his hand against his forehead.

 _Oh, brother._ Edmund winced and swallowed hard.

Two twin brothers of about twenty years old, both with swords strapped to their sides, one with a missing tooth, happened to be passing by, and saw the drunken, gaping people standing in awe of a great gold-coloured dragon.

"Golly, how many bloody twins _are_ there in this area?" Edmund murmured to himself.

"What's happening?" cried the one with both his front teeth in his mouth.

"That dragon has carried off someone!" Tumnus shouted.

"I'll box it!" cried the toothless one.

"Corin, you'll do no such thing." His twin, Cor, grabbed onto his shoulder. "Why not just send out the Griffin Riders after it?"

Tumnus looked at them with widened eyes. "The what now?" There was nothing in their plans about being pursued by any griffins...

"The Griffin Riders," Cor explained patiently, "are a sort of guard system used in woodland areas. It was Coriakin Ramandu's idea originally, but King Frank made it an official position of power and professional occupation at Cair two months ago."

"Hey, you up there!" Tumnus cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed as loudly as he could up at Edmund. "Hang on! They're sending a squad of griffins after you! I say, _griffins_!" He only hoped that would be enough to warn him before the riders turned up.

"Dash it." Edmund craned his head upwards to get Eustace's attention. "Quick, fly me towards Coriakin's mansion."

Dragon-Eustace blinked at him absently.

"Just do it." He tilted his head in the direction of the mansion. They were going to have to speed things up a bit before this whole facade got wildly out of hand; Calormen would have to freeze over a hundred times before Eustace would be willing to fight a griffin, even in dragon-form with skin like chain-mail, breathing fire as easily as drawing breath.

When they reached the mansion, followed on foot down below by a small but steadily growing mob of Lantern-Waste villagers, Edmund had Eustace land on the first large balcony that came into sight.

"Now, drop me!"

Eustace obeyed and released his grip on his cousin, sending Edmund tumbling down onto the balcony.

The curtains over the French-doors that cut the balcony off from the rest of the mansion were not drawn shut and, out of the corner of his eye, he could see a beautiful dark-haired young noblewoman in a toe-length silken nightgown sleeping on a long royal blue velvet sofa.

That'll be Lucy's sister, Edmund thought; the noise will wake her, and if she's really mentally connected to her twin, her brother will wake up, too.

So this all had to be fast, but also convincing; a challenge indeed, but not an impossible one.

"Stand back, dragon!" Edmund pulled his sword out of the dark-coloured scabbard tied to his waist. "I'm not afraid of you."

Eustace started to edge backwards, shaking the balcony.

Pretending to lurch forward, but really only leaning so that he could hiss, "Don't make it look _that_ easy," he waved his sword up and down 'threateningly' at the dragon.

"Roar!" Eustace managed, spreading out his impressively huge wingspan.

"Not so stiff," said Edmund, out of the corner of his mouth, "act natural."

Eustace buried his dragon-snout under one of his wings and yawned.

"Natural for a _dragon_ , not natural for _you_." He wrinkled his nose in disgust, hitting one of Dragon-Eustace's forelegs with the flat of his sword.

Arching a brow, Eustace flicked one of the strong dragon-legs forward and knocked Edmund backwards right into one of the French-windows, turning his head and spewing fire in the opposite direction.

"Better," Edmund said under his breath, trying to regain his footing.

The noise against the window awoke Susan, who saw the dragon on her balcony, let out a girlish scream, stood up in a desperate attempt to locate her bow and quiver full of arrows, then promptly became lightheaded, fainted, and fell back onto the sofa.

"Susan!" Peter, wearing a nightcap and carrying a swinging oil lantern, came charging into the room, knowing his twin sister had seen something terrible and blacked out.

Now that they had their attention, Edmund made it look like the dragon had charged at him unexpectedly, when really Eustace had just sort of lost his balance (he was trying not to sneeze and supposedly had an inner ear infection) and tumbled forward, by dropping his mouth open and jumping backwards with both of his feet spread apart.

Looking through the now partially cracked door-sized window, Peter could see that the dragon appeared to be more or less _sitting_ on the stomach of the boy out there.

Naturally, even Eustace was not stupid enough to put his full dragon-weight down on his cousin, which probably would have crushed all of his body organs and bones flat, but of course none of the on-lookers were aware of this.

Now if only Lucy would show up before we have to cut this little staged tussle short to avoid a griffin invasion, Edmund thought, maybe Gael and Coriakin as well...

A second later, Lucy, leading a white-faced Gael by the hand, followed by Lord Perry (Alexander wasn't with him) and Clara, entered the room. "Oh, Aslan..."

Aslan? Edmund had heard that name before-mostly from Narnians, but he'd never given it much thought. Not that he had too much time to ponder it now... Eustace was lifting his head and letting out another stream of fire directly above Edmund's face.

"Careful," Edmund mouthed up at him; one more hair of an inch and that flame would have burned his nose, as it was his face was only flushed slightly red from the heat.

Gael let out a little shriek of terror and buried her face in Lucy's side. Lucy let go of her hand and put her arm around the little girl's shoulders, holding her close.

"Master Peter," Perry said, stepping forward. "Make haste! Let's grab our weapons and try to drive the creature off before it kills that boy."

Peter didn't respond, he simply gripped the side of the sofa so hard that his knuckles turned white.

"Why do you stand here in a room full of girls and do nothing?" Perry demanded.

"I _am_ doing something," Peter snapped, cocking his head over at his friend. "I'm trying not to faint; do you not understand how much energy it takes for me not to black out when she does?" He glanced down at Susan.

"I'm sorry," Perry amended. "I'd forgotten." He noticed now that there were beads of sweat all over Peter's forehead and that his hands were shaking like withered leaves in the middle of a blizzard.

For years Peter had been trying, not to cut whatever it was that held himself and twin sister connected, but merely to find a way to control it, only without success; he had, however, discovered a few ways of resisting certain relatively small effects. It wasn't anything that would get him into knight training, especially since it didn't _always_ work (he'd fainted unwillingly because of his sister's timid nature before, even when he wasn't scared enough to do so on his own merits), but it made life a little easier upon occasion. The problem was, fighting against their connection strained him terribly, making him dizzy and weak.

"Besides," he added, swallowing hard, "you know I don't fight."

"I can't go out there on my own," Perry pointed out. "That beast will tear me _and_ that boy to pieces."

"Either that or turn you both into human-sized pieces of toast," Peter panted.

"I'm going to need something better than a sword," Perry decided, still planing on going out there anyway; he couldn't leave the boy to die. "Something to hold that creature off until the Griffin Riders arrive."

"It's bloody well taking them long enough," Peter commented under his breath.

"I need-" Perry scanned the room anxiously.

"Susan's bow and arrows!" Lucy let go of Gael and made a dash for the potentially life-saving items. "Clara, look after Gael, I'll be right back!"

"Lucy P. Ramandu," Peter croaked hoarsely after his little sister as she grasped the bow and quiver of arrows and was pushing on the French-doors leading to the balcony, "you get back here! Right now, young lady, I mean it!" When she didn't, he tried to run after her, only to pass out on the floor.

On the balcony, Edmund smiled; Lucy was impulsive, that worked in their favor, surely making their task that much easier. If the star's daughter was foolhardy enough to run out in front of a dragon to rescue someone she had only met once, what else might she be willing to do?

Eustace was less pleased. The stupid girl was _shooting arrows_ at him! He roared more genuinely this time and let out another stream of fire in such a way that Edmund had to grasp Lucy's waist and spin her out of harm's way, also coincidentally knocking the bow and currently prepared arrow out of her hands, skidding onto the other end of the balcony.

"Lucy!" screamed Gael from inside, elbowing Clara to break free and rushing out onto the balcony, too.

"Gael, no!" Perry tried to run after her but tripped over Peter, who was still out cold, just like his sister, falling flat on his face.

"Lucy, I'll protect you!" Gael cried, though she had no means of actually doing so.

"Actually, that's what _I'm_ trying to do," Edmund snapped at her over his shoulder. "Get back in the house!"

"No," said Lucy, crinkling her brow, " _I'm_ saving _you_. That dragon was attacking you, Edmund."

"I'm confused," said Gael, taking a step backwards.

For a split second, Lucy thought she saw the dragon's eyebrows lower themselves with confusion, as if it too was trying to figure out who was saving whom here. That was all she needed to make her think that perhaps it wasn't sorely a monster; maybe it could be reasoned with.

"Let me speak to it," Lucy tried, "perhaps we can figure out what it wants."

"Are you mad?" cried Edmund, shaking his head. "It's a wild beast, it doesn't want anything but to tear us to pieces." He focused his eyes intently on the dragon. "Wild, dumb beast," he repeated pointedly, hoping his clueless cousin would catch the drift. He had, after all, been smart enough to knock the bow out of Lucy's hands at least.

Dragon-Eustace made a noise that sounded-much as Edmund tried to deny it-undeniably like a deep moo.

Edmund and Lucy exchanged puzzled glances; Gael took a step closer to them.

Suddenly an arrow glanced off of one of Dragon-Eustace's wings.

Edmund let go of Lucy and ran to the edge of the balcony, looking down, trying to figure out who was shooting arrows now.

Eustace was an ass, but that didn't mean Edmund actually wanted his cousin to be hurt for real.

Standing on the pavement under the balcony was a girl with long dark hair wearing a boy's sleeping shift, the kind that has a pull-string in the front, that was way too large on her and hung halfway off one shoulder.

It couldn't be Susan; she and Peter were still sprawled out on the floor on the opposite side of the French-doors. Yet, there was still something familiar about her; Edmund felt certain he had seen her somewhere before, but he couldn't think for the life of him where.

The girl fearlessly shot out arrow after arrow, which Dragon-Eustace narrowly managed to dodge.

A caw from the sky told them the Griffin Riders were on their way; closing in on them, no doubt.

Tears spilled out of Eustace's eyes; he was terrified.

Lucy pressed Gael to her side. "What's it doing?"

"I don't know," Edmund lied.

"Those are _tears_ ," Lucy decided, as one hit the balcony. "He's just a scared animal, he doesn't want to hurt anyone."

"No, you're crazy," Edmund insisted, glaring at his cousin; "he's a vicious monster. And I'm sure he'll do something monstrous any second now."

"He's right, Lucy, that's just what crocodiles do to get you off your guard," Perry said, walking out onto the balcony at long last.

"Fine timing," snipped Edmund sarcastically. "Where's your brother, anyway?"

"Using the chamber pot," he came up with a little too quickly.

"All this time?" Gael wanted to know.

"He's backed up," Perry said offhandedly.

"Too much information." Edmund rolled his eyes.

"Where's your cousin?" Perry asked pointedly.

"Cowering," Edmund said; it wasn't a lie.

The dragon frowned and swatted at them with a claw, snatching up Edmund and dragging him away from the group.

"Edmund!" Lucy screamed.

Dragon-Eustace let out a growl and started to lift him a foot in the air.

"Lucy!" cried Edmund, trying to sound anguished.

"Hang on, I'm coming!" Lucy let go of Gael again and, jumping up as high as she could, got a grip on Edmund's leather belt, from which hung not only his scabbard but also the sheath of a dagger.

Drawing out the dagger, she stabbed Dragon-Eustace in the hand.

The girl under the balcony had run out of arrows and seemed to have retreated back into the mansion, most likely only to get more. The cawing was near and more frequent, too. They were running out of time.

This wasn't exactly how it was supposed to go, Lucy wasn't supposed to be the one saving _him_ , but it would have to do.

Eustace let out a cry as the dagger pierced through his skin, dropping both Edmund and Lucy, who was still hanging onto his belt.

They landed with a thud on the balcony, Edmund flat on his back and Lucy on top of him.

"Are you all right?" she whispered. She was so close to his face that her breath tickled his nose.

"Just great," he grunted; he was going to be plenty sore in the morning, but for right now he was fine.

Perry ran over and helped Lucy up off of Edmund.

"Where's the dragon?" asked Gael.

"He's gone," Edmund said, standing up.

"So he is." Perry blinked disbelievingly. "Flown away, no doubt. Remarkable!"

Clara and the finally revived Ramandu twins walked out onto the balcony. "What happened?"

"Lucy saved this boy from the dragon!" Gael exclaimed proudly.

"That's not exactly how it happened," Edmund put in.

"Lu, you're a hero!" Peter hugged her.

"Peter, you need to be a lot firmer," Susan said grumpily. "You were just telling me that you were going to wring her sorry neck for running out here!"

"But, Su, she saved a life."

"You spoil her."

Two griffins landed on the railing.

" _Now_ they show up," Perry sighed grouchily. "Thanks tons for the prompt response, mates. We could have been dead by now."

A slender person in a short blue frock slid off the back of the first griffin, removing her glittering moon-coloured helmet to reveal a head-full of waist-length golden curls. "How like a man! But, nonetheless, for being late I do apologize, Sir," said the girl graciously. "We came against some unseasonable fast, cold winds, and misty snowflakes. It was very queer."

So Jadis had helped them out; she must have been in a decent humour, normally she would have let them crash and burn after screwing up so badly. Edmund breathed a sigh of relief; they were appeasing her so far, their heads weren't on the chopping block.

"Forgive my sharp tongue, Lady Polly," Perry apologized. "It is a pleasure, as always."

The other rider, who wore unusual armour that was definitely not Narnian and was much darker than fair-skinned Polly was, slid off of her griffin as well.

"Why, you're a Calormene!" Edmund blurted out with surprise. A Calormene working to defend Narnia; wasn't that kind of an oxymoron?

Removing her spiked helmet to shake out a long black braid coiling down her back like a snake, she snorted, "What's it to you if I am?"

"Aravis!" Lucy squealed. The young Calormene rider had been a childhood friend of hers, and they had not seen each other in years.

"Lucy Ramandu?" Aravis squinted at the figure in the white dressing-gown who had just addressed her. "Why, it _is_ you!"

The two girls met in a tight embrace.

"She fought a dragon!" Gael announced again.

"Who is this?" Aravis smiled at the little girl.

"Our new sister," Lucy told her.

"Your father has remarried?"

Lucy shook her head. "She's adopted."

"Oh, I see," Aravis said quickly.

Before she could say more, Edmund took a step forward to get a closer look at the griffins; they really were incredible creatures, sleek and golden with hindquarters like that of a lion and wide brown wings and large silvery curved beaks like that of an eagle.

"Stop right there." Aravis grabbed his shoulder and roughly pushed him backwards. "No one but a trained rider _ever_ approaches a griffin." She inhaled deeply. "These are not tame creatures."

"Well, I think I should get going." He turned to leave, looking back nervously at the griffins, whose two pairs of golden-brown eyes were so intense that they seemed to be searing into his soul and reading all his secrets disapprovingly.

"Edmund, wait." Lucy came after him.

He turned to face her. "Yes?"

"Will you be back tomorrow?" she asked, smiling shyly.

He paused, as if thinking about it for a moment. "Yeah, of course."


	4. Table Talk

"Hold still," said Edmund; he was trying to bandage Eustace's hand, but his cousin wasn't cooperating, insisting he didn't know what he was doing.

"I'm probably infected," Eustace complained. "I should get to a real physician."

"For the hundredth time, it's not infected," Edmund snapped. "Do you see any swelling? No, no you don't."

"But why can't I just go to the clinic to make sure?" he whined, yanking his hand out of his cousin's reach.

"Peter runs the clinic," he reminded him.

"So?"

"So, you don't think he's going to find it the slightest trifle suspicious that all of your injuries are in exactly the same places as the dragon who was on his balcony last night?"

"He's bound to know something's up when he sees my hand all wrapped up, don't you think?" Eustace scoffed, finally giving in and letting Edmund grab his hand and wrap it in a smelly herb-covered gauze. "Or at least that blasted girl who stabbed me in the hand will."

"I'll make something up," Edmund told him offhandedly. "He won't see your other injuries, so we'll be fine." Eustace also had a series of minor cuts and bruises, along with one semi-deep gash on his upper arm and shoulder from when that strange girl below the balcony had given him a close shave with her arrows. "As for Lucy, I think she's more likely to be sympathetic than suspicious. She wanted to help you when you were a monstrous dragon, remember?"

Eustace tried to shrug, then let out a cry of pain from his injuries.

"You're such a big baby," Edmund said, rolling his eyes.

"It's too tight," he complained, squinting tearfully at the bandage on his hand.

"It's _fine_ ," his cousin insisted.

"Helps one girl give birth last year and now he blasted well thinks he's a trained physician," Eustace muttered to himself. "Ninny."

"Don't make me hit you," Edmund sneered, wrapping the bandage even tighter to remind his cousin who was in charge and why.

"You should let gentle-bred girls save your life from bloody-thirsty dragons more often," Tumnus commented, walking into their room carrying a tray full of tea, sausage sandwiches, brown poached eggs, bacon, buttered rolls, and steaming porridge. "This inn has been treating us like kings."

It was true, actually; it seemed that as soon as everyone heard the story of Edmund and Lucy fighting off a large dragon on Coriakin's balcony, they warmed up to them considerably. A friend of Lucy's was was a friend of theirs; and moreover, who could have a more interesting story than this boy who'd showed up out of nowhere, fought alongside a star's daughter, and recklessly tried to approach a griffin? They were practically over-night celebrities.

Best of all, they didn't have to pay for this fairly enormous room (complete with velvet curtains and puffy brocade-covered couches) and reveal their surely unwelcome Charnian origins; the bill for tonight had been declared on the house. Edmund didn't know how they were going to pay to spend another night tomorrow, but he decided he'd figure that out later.

Perhaps there was a black market somewhere about this village where he could discreetly exchange his white-gold sovereigns for smaller coins depicting the traditional Narnian lions and trees.

This wouldn't be the first time he'd had to do something like that. Jadis enjoyed loading him up with more than enough money to sustain himself and the others, even to keep them living in style if they so desired, but deliberately making sure it was the wrong _kind_ of money.

Upon two separate occasions, the danger of revealing that he was from Charn by way of the White Witch's coins had been so dire that he had almost had to starve himself in order to avoid spending any of it.

After a nasty woman threw a stone at him to get him away from the dustbin she put outside of her neat little cottage, he had come up with a new way of surviving; using the green ring to turn himself into a wolf and hunting for food that way. And he had made sure to give that horrible woman who wouldn't let him rummage through her trash a good scare while he was at it.

Once, and he was not proud of this, he killed a Talking Rabbit and ate it in a fit of hunger. Remorse afterward had made him force himself to vomit it up, though. He had not felt as a real Narnian (such as any of the Ramandu children) would feel about it, like he had gone and eaten a baby, but he did think it had been ghastly of him and wished he hadn't done it.

By the time he was eleven years old, however, Edmund had grown more street-smart.

It simply was better to just use his wolf-form to scare people with; like Eustace could do with his dragon form. To get food, it was simple; he had to find a way to exchange his money. He didn't care how, really, so long as he got the job done. There were more than enough shady dealers to trade with. Unfortunately, it was one of these very dealers who had gotten him mixed up with some less than safe things to put into his body; he told everyone (including Eustace, Tumnus, and Ammi, even though he knew they knew he was lying) he didn't have a problem and did his best to only chew Toffee-Leaves when no one else was around, or in an unsavory place where it was socially acceptable.

Toffee-Leaves, harmless as they sound, are actually from a tree in Narnia that while the fruit is pretty good (tastes very like toffee, in fact, thus its name) as well as plenty healthy for consumption, the leaves of which are toxic and highly additive. No self-respecting person would chew or swallow them, or even let them near their mouths. Edmund had only meant to try it once, just to see what it was like, when a dealer had offered him a free leaf, but almost four years later he was still buying them whenever he could.

The code-name for those leaves was ironically also the name of what had been his favorite candy as a small child, Turkish Delight.

"I'm bloody starving," Edmund commented, turning away from Eustace and grabbing a sandwich off of the tray as Tumnus set it down.

"Well, save some room," Tumnus told him, putting a letter down on the nightstand. "This came for you earlier."

"What is it?" Eustace leaned forward curiously.

"It's from Lucy Ramandu," Tumnus said, arching a brow.

"I did promise I would go back to the mansion and see her today," Edmund said causally. "Last night, I mean."

"Probably wants to thank you brokenly for letting her save your life," teased Eustace, pursing his lips cheekily.

"Shut up." Edmund threw a napkin at his head and reached for the letter, ripping the crisp envelope marked with the symbol of a star open and pulling out its contents. "She wants to invite all of us to take luncheon with Coriakin and the rest of the family this afternoon," he announced, taken slightly aback.

"Well, it's the least she can do," Eustace said, cramming an egg into his mouth. "Leaving us here, wasting away to nothing; it would display dreadful manners, really."

"Yeah, I can see you hardly get anything to eat in this dump," Edmund barked sarcastically. "Close your mouth."

"The question is," said Tumnus warily, "do we accept?"

"Of course we do," Edmund told him soundly. "We need to."

"I still say we should just chloroform the littlest girl and be done with it." Eustace swallowed his egg in a steady, bulging gulp. "Bring her back to Jadis in a sack, you know?"

"You are an imbecile," Edmund scoffed, placing the letter back down. "First off, Gael isn't even related to them, remember? She's useless to us; sort of like you, most of the time." He poured himself some tea and took a long swig. "Second, do you really think Jadis is going to find that method acceptable? She likes them to suffer, to come crawling into her trap of their own free will."

"The pretty one, then?" Eustace suggested. "The one who fainted when she saw me on the balcony?"

"No, it has to be Lucy," said Edmund.

"Lucy...?"

"The one who stabbed you in the hand, trying to, erm...save me."

"Oh, right."

"She's got to be the one Jadis wants. I mean, she has all the signs; she's Coriakin's daughter, she's impulsive, she's brave, and she fought a dragon to save a near stranger. She's ideal."

"The one who fainted, though," said Tumnus anxiously, "she's older, more likely to be an heir to Coriakin. Doesn't that make her a possibility too? I mean, supposing we focus all our attention on Lucy and we guess wrong? Jadis would whip us all within an inch of our lives and we'd never be free."

"It's too risky, going after Susan." Edmund shook his head vehemently. "Her twin brother's connection to her would put us all in peril."

"How so?"

"Peter will always know exactly where she is because of the connection they share. I don't think Jadis has any power over that. We can't have anybody successfully tracking the victim, that would ruin everything."

"Lucy it is," Tumnus gave in sadly. "Nice little thing, though, isn't she? Such a friendly, spunky little lass. Seems almost a pity..."

"Tumnus, don't." Edmund put up his hand, closing the conversation. "We can't let ourselves get attached. This is business. She's just another girl, she means nothing to us but payment and freedom. And, today, we're going to have a business luncheon."

When they made it to the mansion, Lucy and Peter greeted them at the front door. It was a double-door made of polished apple-wood and it must have been a little old because it creaked just the slightest bit when it opened.

Lucy looked awfully cheery for a girl who had been fighting off a dragon the night before; she wore a comfortable-looking dark blue tunic, which had to be her own and nobody else's (meaning, that is, not borrowed, in spite of the fact that such a style was typically reserved for young men) because it was fitted to her exactly, over a pair of white tights and her hair was pulled into a low ponytail. Peter was dressed similarly, only his tunic was a much larger size and a lighter shade of blue.

"Come," he said, holding the door open for them. "But first, please take off your shoes. Father doesn't like hard-soled shoes indoors; pet-peeve of his, I'm afraid."

"Very sanitary." Eustace sounded impressed. "Has he got spare knitted booties for his guests?"

"Has he got a which?" Peter looked puzzled.

"No, not a which, little soft shoes."

"No, I don't think he has."

"Shame." Eustace made a 'tisk-tisk' noise and sucked his teeth disapprovingly.

"Well, now, think about it," Tumnus said to him in a low, sharp tone, "would you really want to put on slippers that other people had had their sweaty feet in?"

"No, now that I think about it, I can't say I would," said Eustace in a rather priggish manner, turning his nose up in the air. "But at least, I will be permitted to keep my socks on, I hope?"

"Why, I'd much prefer it if you did!" Peter cracked a slow, teasing smile, revealing a hint of genuine humour.

"Father has been anxious to meet you," Lucy whispered to Edmund, trailing behind her brother so that she could speak with the newly arrived guests while they walked barefooted (save for Eustace, who wore his socks with pride) along the spotless white carpet. "He missed all of last night. Full-blooded stars have a hard time sleeping at night; so he takes something to make him sleep and almost never stirs till morning."

"So, your mum," Edmund said conversationally, "she wasn't..."

"Wasn't a star," Lucy admitted. "That's right."

"She was..."

"Mortal, like you and your cousin, and like little Gael."

"Which would make you..."

"A demistar, of course," laughed Lucy. "What else would I be?"

"Do demistars live for thousands of years?"

"Only if we keep in good health and take care not to fall ill," Lucy joked. Then, more seriously, she added, "No, I'm mostly mortal, if that's what you're asking. All half-blood stars are. I'll age and die just like you."

"Your house is really nice," Edmund commented as they walked under a very expensive-looking marble arch.

"Thank you," said Lucy, rather humbly, all things considered.

"I've seen nicer," Eustace lied, listening in on their conversation.

"No, you haven't." Edmund called his cousin's bluff.

"I've _read_ about nicer places," he defended himself.

"So have I," said Lucy patiently. "Perhaps we've read the same books. We ought to compare them later."

Eustace wasn't used to kindness; he was used to 'ignorant' people getting annoyed with him for 'being right all the time'. Her words threw him for a bit of a loop. How to react to that? He fell momentarily silent.

The dinning room was a tall space with a dome-shaped ceiling held up by tall pillars. The table was long enough to have sat an entire king's court comfortably and was covered by a billowy white tablecloth with two inches of lace sewn into the hem.

At the head of the table was a man with a short curly brown-white beard dressed in a wine-coloured robe and silk slippers, who could only be Coriakin the star. His eyes were unusually striking, because one was glowing blue and the other was a dim golden shade.

Also seated were Perry and Alexander, dressed very properly, wearing everything that could possibly be even remotely necessary, save for their shoes and armour, Susan, who looked a great deal younger with her hair pulled into two separate braids, Aravis and Polly, dressed in sleek white muslin dresses, their heads bare, and Gael who was wearing a more causal tunic-based outfit like Lucy's and Peter's.

There was no sign, however, of the girl who had shot arrows at Dragon-Eustace last night, but both Edmund and Eustace meant to keep an eye out, if only to learn who she actually was.

"Father," said Lucy excitedly, grabbing her new friend's arm and pulling him forward, "this is Edmund."

"Ah, so this is the one." Coriakin rose from his seat and started very hard at him.

Edmund resisted the urge to gulp loudly under the star's unnerving multi-coloured gaze.

"Hmm," hummed the star, stroking his chin. "Turn around."

"What?" Edmund blinked uncomprehendingly.

"Spin," he instructed.

"Spin?" Edmund repeated incredulously.

"Just do it," Peter told him.

He did, feeling extremely silly.

"Very well, stop." Coriakin reached out, bringing him to a halt and put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Let me see now."

"See?"

"Shh, be quiet," Coriakin ordered, not unkindly. "I have a talent for guessing what people are."

Well, I certainly hope you're shaming, thought Edmund, otherwise I'm really in for it.

"You've a dark past," decided Coriakin, nodding down at him, "but a light heart, though you don't know it. You don't like to be confined in small spaces, and you have no greater fear than that of your own self." He smiled. "Yes, I know, what you are. You, lad, are a being of the sky."

"Of...the sky...?" Edmund twisted his mouth and raised both of his eyebrows simultaneously. "What are you talking about?"

"I told you, I have a talent for guessing what people really are, what they're meant to be." The star looked over at Aravis and Polly. "I think he should start Griffin Rider training as soon as possible."

Oh, so it _was_ a sham, then. Edmund exhaled. This was all a trick to get another recruit for that stupid griffin cult. Well, he didn't plan on being here long enough for that, so the senile coot of a star could speculate on where he belonged all he wanted; it wouldn't make much difference. Besides, Aravis wouldn't even let him go near a griffin last night; why should she let him train to _ride_ one?

"Uncle Coriakin," said a soft voice, "please bid your guests to sit down."

Edmund looked up as the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life entered the room. She was dressed in a single clear garment of cloud-white that left her arms bare, and her long yellow hair was worn loose, falling almost to her feet.

Eustace and Tumnus bowed awkwardly.

Edmund gaped at her, as if frightened. He was no coward, but there was something about women that were unnaturally good-looking that made him uneasy; Jadis was uncommonly beautiful, so the comparison never left a good taste in his mouth. Peter's twin was all right, in spite of her beauty, because she acted too human to be a witch.

This lady, however, made him want to take a step back and feel for his hatchet.

"Lilliandil, is the food ready?" Coriakin asked.

"Yes, Clara will be out with it momentarily." She looked over at Edmund. "Why do you stare at me like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like you want to drive an arrow into my skull and then kick me a few times to make sure I am actually dead."

"You share a feature with someone I feared very deeply as a child," was all he would say, tearing his eyes away from her and refusing to let himself look directly at her again.

"I am sorry to have upset you," she said softly.

"No matter," said Coriakin dismissively. "Let us all sit down."

Edmund found himself seated between Lucy and Susan; Eustace and Tumnus across from him, Lilliandil and Perry on their left.

"Lilliandil is announcing her betrothal this summer," Susan said as Clara brought out the silver tureen of soup and started to serve the first course.

"How nice," said Perry. "Might I ask to who?"

"Caspian," answered Lilliandil. "He's a frequent passenger on the Dawn Treader. We met near Cair, in the east, a couple of years ago."

"I say, we know him!" blurted Eustace. "He made us mop the deck."

"Shut up," Edmund mouthed over at him.

"I think it's stupid that people have to announce their betrothals before they're usually considered legally binding," put in Alexander, scowling down at his soup as Clara poured it into his bowl. "Same with weddings."

"Oh, not this again," Perry moaned, putting his hand to his forehead.

"Yes, I'm sick of-" Alexander's voice became higher-pitched. "Of people always assuming if there's been no announcement regarding so-and-so that it's fair game to flirt with them, never thinking they might be secretly engaged-or even married-to someone else."

"Alexander, you're being ridiculous," snapped Perry, dropping his spoon against his butter-knife and making a small clamor. "And all this just because that stupid, half-drunk girl who I wouldn't give the time of day kissed me last week."

"She _kissed_ you?" Alexander looked surprisingly peeved.

"You didn't see that?" Perry's face reddened.

"The little tramp," muttered Alexander.

"I take it that Alexander was interested in the slightly intoxicated young lady in question as well?" Tumnus whispered to Perry, trying to sort out what the quarrel was about.

Alexander overheard. "Oh, trust me, Mr...Tumnus, is it? She wasn't my type. But if Perry likes her, Aslan forbid I should stand in the way of that."

"I don't like her, dash it!" Perry looked like he was having trouble restraining himself.

"Well, now I don't like _you_ ," snorted Alexander.

Perry tried to keep himself from screaming. "By the Lion, Alex, why are we even having this conversation? Can you please explain that to me?"

"Not in front of people I can't," Alexander grunted. "And it's not fair."

"Life isn't fair, get over it."

"I don't want to be your brother anymore."

"What? That's not fair."

"Get over it," sneered Alexander.

"Don't you throw my words back in my face like that!"

"You're not the boss of me, Perry!"

"Oh, but _you_ get to be the boss of _me_ , is that it?"

"Does the word 'obey' mean nothing to you?"

"Yeah, but I seem to recall you said it, too."

"That's right, and I always have to do everything you tell me." He started to mimic his brother's voice. "Dress like this, Alexander. Talk with a deeper voice, Alexander, you sound like a girl, people are staring at us again. I'm sick and tired of it, Perry!"

"Well, you're a lousy brother."

"How dare you say that! I've been the best brother in the world."

"More like the most controlling."

"Me, controlling? Look in the mirror, my friend."

"I make you do what I make you do for your protection, Alex. If people knew about... Well, I protect you, just like I promised. What more do you want from me?"

"Nothing," sobbed Alexander, who was now, unbelievably, out-right crying. "Excuse me, everybody, but I think I need to lie down." He stood up and ran out of the dinning room.

Everyone else at the table was completely lost, having no idea what the gray-eyed twins were fighting about or why Alexander had broken down weeping.

"Rummy things, engagements," said Edmund stiffly, after a pause, because he didn't know what else to say.

"Yeah, they're pretty rummy." Perry stood up. "I have to go check on my brother, he's having a bad day, as you all can see."

"You don't know a blasted thing about engagements, Cousin Edmund," Eustace declared.

"Yeah, I do, I was practically betrothed once," Edmund insisted.

Lucy and Peter's eyes widened with mild surprise, and Susan demurely took a sip of wine out of a gold-rimmed glass. Tumnus choked on his soup and started coughing uncontrollably.

"You were not," Eustace said, rolling his eyes.

"Yes, I was." Edmund sat up straighter in his chair. "There was an understanding."

"Understanding?" Tumnus gasped out, finally managing to dislodge the swallow of soup that had gone down the wrong way. "Edmund, if you're referring to what I think you're referring to, then that was not actually an engagement."

"I proposed, didn't I?" Edmund pointed out. "She knew why I asked, I knew why I asked. That's an understanding."

"Yes, but I don't think it counts if the girl gives you the bum's rush," argued Eustace. "She told him to go and boil his head," he added to everyone else at the table.

Peter tried not to laugh and struggled madly against a repressed snicker.

"Oh, come on," Edmund laughed out of disbelief. "That's not how it happened."

"I seem to recall she threw a very large tome at your head and screamed that you were ruining her life," said Tumnus, smiling over his shoulder at Clara as she collected all the empty soup bowls.

Clara blushed and lowered her eyes modestly.

"Don't help, Tumnus," Edmund sighed.

Lucy and Gael were giggling.

"I guess you could say Edmund's had a run of bad luck with girls in the past. Hasn't found the right one yet, I suppose," said Tumnus, looking over at Lucy, making sure she had stopped giggling long enough to hear that clearly.

Oh, very smooth, thought Edmund. Leave it to Tumnus to take a true story and still twist it around to support their whole facade, making it look like he was just your typical hopeless romantic, when really there was a whole lot more back-story behind that 'understanding' than he would ever care to let Lucy know about.

The trick was to blend little beads of truth as seamlessly with the steady stream of lies as possible, because you were much less likely to get caught that way. The whole act now was just to be jolly, as if he really were as light of heart as Coriakin had decided he was, in spite of a 'troubled' past. The real secret was never letting her on about just _how_ troubled it was.

"Did you hear they've legally proclaimed the missing Grand Duchess of Ettinsmoor dead?" asked Aravis sadly, when the conversation had finally turned away from engagements and all that rot.

Lilliandil looked stricken. "No!"

"It's true," said Polly, shaking her head sorrowfully. "They even sent Griffin Riders out to look for her; I was with them."

"But they've found no body?" Coriakin wanted to know.

"No sign of one," sighed Polly.

"Dear Aslan," said Susan softly, "how are we going to tell Perry?"

"We're not," Peter cut in. "We can't do that to him. He's got enough on his plate. Alexander's been acting...well, weird lately...and I don't think the poor chap needs any further strain on his mental sanity right now."

"You're right, Peter," Susan decided, "it would be too awful for him."

"Well, I think he should be told," said Lucy suddenly, leaning forward so Susan could see her.

"But it would be too awful for him." Susan put a hand to her heart. "Think how you would feel if you were in his place."

"Still," said Lucy, shifting in her chair.

"The grand duchess was such a lovely child, too." Coriakin pushed his chair back while Clara put down a place of roast hart in front of him. "Perfect darling, really. You could get that blessed girl to do anything so long as you could win her affections."

"She was a childhood friend of Perry's," Lucy whispered in Edmund's ear.

"Ah." Edmund nodded.

"One year," Coriakin went on, "she got her hair cut short like a boy's and was so angry at the servants who did it she wouldn't even look at them for weeks. That is, until she found out her new cut had some practical uses." He smiled to himself, remembering. "You see, she and Perry were, quite remarkably, almost perfect body doubles at that age, before he hit puberty. From behind, if she was wearing a doublet, you'd never know the difference. Played many a prank on us grown-ups using her new look."

"She had the same colour eyes as Perry and Alexander as well," recalled Clara as she finished putting the last steaming vegetable plate down in front of Aravis. "Three people which such matched eyes. Never seen the like! I'm glad I never saw the three of them in a room together, that's for certain. It would have been too creepy. Though they would have enjoyed it."

"Perry and the duchess would have," said Peter, cutting into his meat. "I'm not so sure about Alexander; he isn't very like his brother in that way, doesn't seem to like jokes as much."

"Enough of this unpleasant talk," said Coriakin at last. "We're making our guests feel left out. So, let us speak of that dragon attack last night instead, I want to hear all about it. Then, perhaps when we've finished eating, Lucy would like to show our guests to the garden for a bit."


	5. Garden Talk

"Oh, before I forget," said Lucy, stopping in her tracks and pulling something from the black leather belt she wore around the middle of her tunic, "this is yours."

Edmund stopped, too.

They were walking together through Coriakin's gardens, a series of lush, vivid green lawns dotted by oddly-shaped shrubs and the occasional fruit tree. (There were no Toffee Trees amongst them; Edmund's addiction had already driven him to scan what could be seen of the immediate area to check for these and he found nothing.)

The land was flat on the walking path, but there were plenty of hills and hedges to please the eyes; this was almost entirely a pleasure garden, grown for the sheer delight of it's unique beauty, not out of any material need.

She handed him the dagger she had taken the night before to fight Dragon-Eustace. "It's an awful nice one, by the way."

"You can have it," said Edmund graciously. If he was trying to get her to like him, the least he could do was give her an old dagger he didn't particularly need; anyway, it couldn't be too hard to obtain another.

"No." Lucy shook her head. "Thank you, but...I...I like seeing you with it."

"Beg pardon?" Edmund lowered his brow.

"Because it's got Aslan's head on it," she explained, fingering the beautiful Lion's mane shaped pommel at the very top of the hilt.

"Oh, so _that's_ Aslan," Edmund realized, turning the dagger over in his hand, really examining it closely for the first time since he'd bought it from a traveling Narnian merchant almost three years ago.

If it really was a depiction of Aslan, then it was lucky that Jadis-by pure chance-had never seem him with it. He may not have known much about Aslan, but he knew the White Witch hated that name.

Once when Charn happened to be going through an unseasonal thaw, her dwarf-servant, Ginarrbrik, had had the nerve to say that name, and the witch, in turn, had declared that if she ever heard any of her Traitors repeat it, they would instantly be killed.

Lucy's jaw dropped open. "What...you don't mean you've never..."

Edmund's cheeks reddened, but before he could say anything, there came the most horrible din he had ever heard in his whole life, followed by a number of one-footed dwarf-like creatures (Coriakin's Dufflepuds, no doubt) hopping across their path, holding their ears, some of them out-right crying.

"Oh, not again..." Lucy cringed and rolled her eyes.

There it was again, the dreadful sound so disturbingly bad it made his cousin's singing sound like extremely beautiful music by comparison; sort of like someone was torturing an animal.

"I give up," gasped Edmund; " _what_ is that racket?"

"It's our neighbours," Lucy sighed, a little red in the face herself now. "They're Calormenes, but they aren't like Aravis; they worship the god Tash, you see."

He didn't 'see'. "But what does that have to do with-"

"They aren't here all the time-the manor on the other side of the hedge over yonder is thankfully only a holiday home for them," she explained; "but when they do come, they like to sing at their household shrine for Tash every afternoon."

Edmund's face recoiled. "Are they trying to praise Tash or torment him?"

Lucy giggled. "I've never thought it polite to ask."

He shuddered and slid his dagger back into the empty sheath on his belt. "Bloody dreadful, if you ask me."

They started again, so loudly that even Lucy, who was struggling against the urge, had to press her hands to her ears and moan.

"Let me take care of this," Edmund offered, patting her on the shoulder and stepping forward.

"No, Edmund, wait!" She tried calling after him, but he wouldn't heed her.

Sure enough, Edmund made his way to the hedge, pulled himself up so that he was looking over the top of it, and tried to locate the Calormene family.

By means an open window, he caught sight of a reasonably pretty Calormene lady roughly Aravis or Lucy's age, dressed in a pale green sari-like outfit, with a pet monkey draped around her neck like a charmed snake, the rest of what he could only assume was her family, and a dark, handsome man with a curled crimson beard about two years the girl's senior, who didn't look much like them aside from being of the same ethnicity.

By the ring on his finger, and the matching one on the young lady's, he gathered that this was likely her husband. He'd heard in passing before that Calormenes married young, so this didn't surprise him.

"Hey!" Edmund shouted at them to get their attention.

"Eh, who is this lowly worm who presumes to intrude on our holy prayers?" boomed a chubby, scowling man who Edmund thought must be the young lady's father.

"I'm Edmund," he called over to them. "And, I say, could you possibly keep the wailing and shrieking to a minim? Or at least close the window? Much obliged, I'm sure, thanks."

"Dog!" cried the husband, raising a painted wooden slipper in his hand as if he meant to throw it at Edmund's head but putting it back on his foot instead when he was done shaking it threateningly. "We are praying to the great Tash, who's bolt would strike you dead for being so impertinent!"

" _Praying_ to him?" exclaimed Edmund, reverting-to Lucy's great surprise-from speaking Narnian to speaking almost perfect Calormene. "Why, it sounds more like you're trying to make him angry!"

"How dare you!" cried the mother. "The gods will punish you for your irreverence, boy!"

"I should think it more likely that they would thank me for making you give it a rest for five seconds, or at least conclude that having to listen to that was punishment enough."

The lady in the green sari, gingerly stroking one of her monkey's wee paws as it caressed her shoulder, gasped, though not as if she were insulted, more as if she were deeply amused and was loving every second of the drama. This was far, far more interesting than a typical morning in their holiday manor, here on this sand-less, savage Narnian soil, was.

What a day she was having, watching and listening to it all unfold!

"Oh, do tell your family to lay off a bit, Lasaraleen!" bellowed a voice that was suddenly at Edmund's right side, belonging to Aravis, who had been in another part of the garden with Tumnus and Eustace before the all too familiar sounds of a Tarkheena she had grown up with back in Calormen singing her prayers alongside her family, windows open in spite of the slight chill in the air, had blown in on the wind. "The boy only says what everyone in the village has been longing to for ages, after all. This isn't Calormen; there aren't many people who...erm, _appreciate_...our kind of temple music here."

"Aravis, darling!" cried Lasaraleen, looking delighted, shoving her father, husband, and mother out of the way of the window. "I didn't know you were staying with Coriakin. What a lovely surprise! Isn't he a dear? Such a lovely fellow, gave me a paper full of nuts for my monkey the other day... Oh, do listen, darling, it's really a frightfully funny story, all things considered...you see-"

"Aravis, child," called Lasaraleen's mother over her daughter's shoulder, "you know this boy?"

"Of course, Auntie," said Aravis (the woman was not actually her aunt, but she addressed her as such because, in their social class in Calormen, very often the younger woman were expected to call their older mentors, parents and guardians of their peers, 'uncle' or 'aunt' as a term of respect and endearment, even if-as in Aravis's case-they did not feel particularly close to them). "Edmund is going to take up training as a Griffin Rider, which would make him my apprentice."

Or Polly's, Edmund thought, if I had any real intention of joining in the first place.

"I always said it was dirty work for a high-born lady," the woman sighed, clicking her tongue, "ridding about on those cursed demon-beasts all day long, putting out fires and saving worthless farmer's daughters from those wrenched fresh-soil sinkholes in this country."

Lasaraleen's mother had nonsensical ideas about what Griffin Riders did for a living, but Aravis knew better than to argue with her. "So you have," she said neutrally through her teeth. "And many a time in my hearing and that of others. I bid you all good afternoon. You've a lovely holiday home and a lovely family, Lasaraleen, little though any of it would suit me, best of luck with everything." She climbed back down the hedge, Edmund following close behind.

"I had things in hand," he told her, a little grudgingly.

"Pshaw," muttered Aravis. In a clearer tone, she said, "Just count yourself fortunate that Lasaraleen is no longer unmarried and a maid."

"Why?"

"Because then she would have to spend an hour longer singing to Zardeenah, the goddess of nighttime and maidenhood, after everyone had finished their services to Tash, that's why."

"I was in Calormen once before," Edmund said. "I see I was wise to avoid lingering near any temples."

"We don't _all_ sound like that," Aravis said generously. "A few of Lasaraleen's cousins have pretty voices, though nothing they sing is particularly meaningful when you really think about it."

Lucy was holding her side and laughing as she ran up to them. "I can't believe you really did that," she gasped out at Edmund.

"Well, they were bothering you, weren't they?" he said causally, wondering if maybe he was laying it on a bit thick and ought to tone it down.

But Tumnus nodded approvingly in his direction, as if to say, "Nice one."

Lucy smiled broadly at him. "You did that...for me?"

"Actually, I did it for anything with ears." Edmund chuckled slyly. "But obviously that includes you, so your guess wasn't far off."

She hooked his arm while they continued to walk around the garden a while longer. "Will you be reconsidering staying at the mansion for a bit, now that you've been here, or are you comfortable at the inn?"

"To tell you the truth, Lucy," he sighed, glancing over his shoulder briefly at a tree that he thought-though only for a second-might have been of the toffee variety after all, "I have some investments that haven't come through yet, and while the inn was generous enough to give us last night free, after..." He shook his head, then went on. "Well, anyway, I..." He ran a hand through his hair, scratching lightly at the back of his scalp. "I can't afford to stay there right now."

"Then it's settled," Lucy said happily, giving his arm a light, friendly squeeze. "You'll stay with us. Father will be so pleased. He likes you, I can tell. And Eustace and I will be able to compare those books. Are you and Tumnus big readers as well?"

"I read when I can, which isn't as often as I would like."

"Father will let you use his library if you ask; he has a most wonderful collection of books. Gael reads in there nearly every evening with a cup of hot chocolate now."

"I'm more of a tea person myself," said Edmund, finding that the conversation was becoming a little easier; he hadn't expected Lucy to be so easy to talk to. Usually, overly friendly people made him nervous, like that Caspian chap from the Dawn Treader Lilliandil was engaged to. But Lucy was so harmlessly _good_ ; she was like the puppy he'd never had growing up.

"Me too," Lucy agreed. "But a cup of hot chocolate does hit the spot when you're in the middle of a good book; Gael's right about that."

"Are Peter and Susan tea people too?" He knew that Tumnus, if he was listening to this conversation, was probably wondering exactly how talking about tea was going to make Lucy like him, but Edmund didn't care; it seemed like the most natural thing to say.

"Yes, Susan especially." She laughed to herself.

"What is it?"

"Susan and Clara once got into a quarrel over the best way to make tea," she explained. "I still laugh every time I think about it."

"So," he wanted to know, "who won? About making the best tea, I mean."

"Well, Susan did, sort of," Lucy said slowly, "but Clara still makes everybody's tea the same way she's been doing for years." Thinking for a moment, she had a question of her own. "Edmund, who makes the tea where you live?"

"Where I live?" he repeated.

"You must live somewhere," Lucy said, not meaning to be pressing, just curious; "when you're not away on business."

"Yeah, I live...somewhere..." he agreed vaguely. "Me, Eustace, Tumnus, and...someone else... But, to be honest, we don't have a whole lot of time to just sit around sipping tea there. Whenever we have it, though, Tumnus fixes the tea, or I do."

"Can I ask you something?"

Edmund nodded. "Course."

"Did you really not know it was Aslan was on your dagger?" This had been sort of pricking at her, and she felt she had to know.

"Honestly, no," he told her.

"But you're Narnian, aren't you?" She'd never heard of a Narnian who didn't even know who Aslan was. The way Lucy was raised, you learned about him before you learned your alphabet.

"I think I am," Edmund said, thinking he felt much more comfortable discussing tea, wishing they could go back to that now.

"Don't you know?"

"Know? Not really. Have an educated guess? Sure."

"I'm sorry," said Lucy, simply because she didn't know how else to respond.

"Don't be," said Edmund, tightly but not unkindly. "Sorry's something I prefer to do without."

"Are you all right?" She noticed that his facial expression had gone twisted and pained, and she wondered if he was taken sick. "You look awful."

"Nah, I'm just freezing. I get cranky when I'm cold. It's the wind picking up, I think." He noticed for the first time how far off from the mansion's back doors they had wandered. "How do we get out of here?"

Lucy let go of his arm and grabbed his hand. "Come on, this way." She made sure Eustace and Tumnus were close by and following, too. Aravis had wandered off, but she would be able to find her way back inside on her own.

That night, Edmund was escorted by a very flighty-minded Dufflepud to a bedchamber that made the room at the inn he had shared with Tumnus and Eustace (who of course were given their own guest rooms in this enormous mansion) look like a tool shed. The bed was big enough to have fit about ten of him and stuffed with swan feathers (not from _Talking_ swans, of course), so he should have gotten a good night's sleep, except he was plagued by a nightmares galore, making him rise up in a cold sweat, having to bite down on his lip to avoid screaming aloud and waking the whole household.

In his dream, he had been running away from an angry pack of wolves, and, thinking to defend himself, he reached into his pocket for the green ring so that he could turn into a wolf as well and perhaps stand a fighting chance against them. But one of them pounced on him, knocking him face-first to a cobblestone ground, and the ring slipped out of his grasp and bounced on the road, rolling away, hopelessly out of reach. He had no chance of finding it again.

Worse still was the moment he managed to stand back up and look into the faces of the wolves; their eyes were those of all the half-star girls he had directly or indirectly led to Jadis in the past. They growled at him and bared their teeth; what reason did they have to show him mercy? After all, what mercy (or true kindness), what help, had he offered them? Remorse wasn't enough. It was like that Rabbit; even after he vomited the poor creature up, it was still dead, and it was never coming back.

Shooting up straight as a poker in the bed, Edmund remembered that that was right; those girls were never, ever coming back. Not as themselves, and not as wolves, either. They were gone. Thanks to him.

"So either I'm going mad," he whispered to himself, rubbing his eyelids. "Or something is playing with my mind."

"By Aslan!" shouted a voice at the foot of his bed. "Who are you? What the devil are you doing in here?"

Edmund opened his eyes all the way and squinted in the darkness. "Who's there?"

"I asked first!"

"You're in my room." Edmund scooted forward to get a better look at the intruder.

"No, this is Lord Perry's room," snapped the voice defensively.

"I think he switched," Edmund said, trying to remember the conversation regarding rooming arrangements earlier but still too shaken from the images of girl-eyed wolves and bouncing green rings to think with complete clarity. Somewhere along the line, he was fairly certain Perry had gotten moved to another room closer to his twin brother's.

"Oh, I know who you are now," the voice told him. "You're Edmund Maugrim, Lucy's friend. Sorry, I didn't recognize you for a moment there, you gave me a bit of a fright, jumping up like that."

" _I_ ," Edmund repeated incredulously, "gave _you_ a fright?"

"No matter." There came a rustling sound from the foot of the bed. "I'll be going now."

For a second, before the figure slipped back into the shadows, Edmund caught a glimpse of it. "I know you! You're the girl who was shooting arrows to fight off the dragon." The long dark hair, the same exact sleeping shift; even in the bad lighting, he recognized her.

"Turn around," she ordered.

"What?"

"You heard me, I want to leave."

"So, leave," Edmund said. "No one's stopping you."

"There a small rush light by the door."

"So?"

"So I don't want you to see me, stupid."

"I saw you before...with the arrows..."

"Enough about the stupid arrows," snapped the girl impatiently. "You don't know what you're talking about. I was careful. Nobody saw me; you _barely_ saw me."

"Are you even a guest here?" he wondered aloud.

"As a matter of fact," she said snappily, "I am."

Enough of this, Edmund thought. He scooted backwards till he came close enough to his nightstand to light a candle on it.

Shrieking, the girl covered her face with her arms. "Idiot!"

"What are you hiding from?"

"I don't want you to look at me!" she shout-muttered from behind her arms. "Are you deaf as well as stupid?"

Edmund rolled his eyes. "Listen, I'm exhausted, and I'm obviously not going to get back to sleep with you in here." He turned his back to her. "Get going, I won't look."

"I hope you know I would have never come in here if I'd know it was your room," she said, standing up, her arms still over her face. "I thought Perry would be here."

"Duly noted," he said, glancing over his shoulder to reply.

"Don't," she snapped, still trying to hide her face. "You said you saw me shooting, right?"

"Right..."

"If you upset me, I'm perfectly capable of sending an arrow into your back and making it look like an accident."

Edmund turned his head the other way again to oblige her. "So, you're Perry's..."

"None of your business!"

"Just making conversation."

"Just leaving," she said, walking towards the door.

"With your luck," Edmund teased, "you'll end up in Alexander's room by mistake after this."

"Oh, trust me, there's no danger of that," she laughed bitterly. Pausing, she added, "By the way, to answer your question, I'm his wife."

"Perry's married?" Edmund resisted the urge to turn around and face her again.

"You didn't hear it from me."

And just like that, she was gone so suddenly that Edmund wondered if he hadn't been dreaming still.

No matter; for now he would just try to relax. Tomorrow was another big day. Carefully, he reached under his pillow for the small leather bag of Toffee-Leaves he had hidden there.


	6. The Most Important Meal Of The Day

The next morning, Edmund-quite literally-banged into Perry and Alexander in the corridor leading from the hallway outside of his room to the dinning area with the long king's court sized table. Something told him he should keep his mouth shut about his visitor last night, but curiosity and impulsiveness, traits that, despite their vastly different up-bringing, he happened to share with a certain Lucy P. Ramandu, poked at him, daring him to do it.

And Edmund wasn't the sort to put up much resistance to a dare.

"Lord Perry," he blurted, "just the chap I wanted to see."

"I am?" he furrowed his brow.

Alexander's face went a little pale, and, upon recovering, he unexpectedly shot Edmund rather a nasty look, urging him to shut up.

Any reasonable man would have been likely to take the hint, but Edmund, at this point in his life, was not really a reasonable man. "You had a visitor last night."

Perry swallowed hard, but his voice was cool as he said, offhandedly, "Did I now?"

"Yes," said Edmund. "A most forceful girl who, much to my surprise, claimed to be your wife."

Alexander cracked his knuckles; if he had been a less slight-figured boy, perhaps Edmund would have thought twice about making an enemy of him, but as it was, he did not seem very threatening, even when he was trying to be.

"You must have been dreaming," Perry said, rolling his eyes. "Everyone knows I've never so much as announced an engagement."

Alexander's angry look switched in a flash over from Edmund to Perry. "Yeah, and who's fault is that?"

"Not now, Alexander." He waved his brother off.

"So," said Edmund slyly, thinking up a plan to find out the truth in under five seconds as to whether or not Perry was married, "you're not married? The woman who was in my bed last night wasn't your wife?"

"She was in your bed?" Perry looked a little discomfited all of a sudden. " _With_ you?" He glared at Alexander out of the corner of his eye before turning his attention unwaveringly back to Edmund.

"What do you care?" Edmund asked cheekily, cocking his head to the left. "She's not your wife, right?"

"Right," said Perry, very unconvincingly, through clenched teeth.

"You know," he went on, smiling as smugly as possible, "I think she liked me. I wonder if I should be more friendly if she drops by again."

That did it. Perry grabbed onto the front of his doublet and unceremoniously pinned his back against the wall. "If you even _think_ about so much as putting on a hand on her, I'll-"

"Perry, don't kill Edmund." Alexander stepped forward, seemingly in Edmund's defense.

"You _are_ married," Edmund said, frowning at Perry; he'd just proved it by his reaction.

Alexander gritted his teeth. "If he keeps sticking his nose in where it doesn't belong _I_ want to be the one to kill his sorry arse."

"Look," said Edmund hurriedly, before Perry (or, worse, Alexander) could get it in his head to strangle him right then and there, "all I'm saying is that if you really love your, erm, not-wife you should make it as legal as possible."

"Why?" Perry's eyes narrowed. "What do you know?" He pressed him more forcibly against the wall. "Who have you been talking to?"

"No one," he replied, wiggling himself so that Perry's grip had to loosen just a little bit, enough so he could breathe anyway. "I don't know you, Perry. But I do know the kind of men who lie to women they want for years, claiming to be their husbands even, but do nothing about it. All I'm saying is the girl I talked to last night isn't going to take a jilting well. So I wouldn't go around denying you were married to her if I were you."

Alexander, to Edmund's great surprise, lightly applauded sardonically. "Amen. Hear, hear."

"Alex, he doesn't know the situation." Perry let go of Edmund and goggled helplessly at his brother. "I can't, I'm sorry."

Alexander's eyes filled with tears. "Fine." He blinked rapidly. "If you'll excuse me, I have to go back into my room before I vomit on the floor." Pressing his hand to mouth, Perry's twin ran down the opposite side of the corridor.

"What's with him?"

Perry shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, he's been sick every morning this week. I told him I didn't think it was serious enough to worry Peter over."

Edmund, now that Perry no longer seemed like he wanted to kill him and then bring him back to clean up the mess, felt more at ease and continued walking with him towards the dinning room. "Good thing he's not a girl," he joked. "If he was, this would probably mean he was with child."

Perry's whole face went green, like _he_ was going to throw up. "What?"

"What what?" Edmund crinkled his forehead. "It was just a joke."

"But, women really get sick when they...?" Perry looked like he was trying to sort something out.

"Uh, yeah..."

"Oh...my..." Perry swayed uncomfortably back and forth.

"You're not going to faint, are you?"

"Hey, I _don't_ faint." Perry put his finger in Edmund's face pointedly. "I am however feeling a little woozy." He lowered his finger. "I think I need to go back to my room now."

Over his shoulder, Edmund watched Perry dash back in the opposite direction, almost tripping over a decorative plant in a huge silver pot on the way.

"I don't want to know." He rolled his eyes. His mission wasn't Perry and Alexander; it was Lucy. He had to get back to work.

Tumnus and Eustace, Aravis and Polly, Peter and Susan, and Gael were already seated at the table when he arrived. Coriakin wasn't there yet, and all of the food, spread out like a grand buffet, laid out on silver dishes, was all covered, like they were waiting for his arrival before they began eating.

Peter, looking both ways, tried to sneak a piece of sausage out from under the lid of the dish closest to him, and Susan, sensing his thought as intensely as if someone had pinched her elbow and whispered it into her ear a split second before he could put it into action, snaked his wrist. "Peter!" She made her voice sound stern and annoyed, but really, deep down, she was glad he had done that; it meant his appetite was all right today.

Sometimes, when he was struggling with depression or simply worried about someone who was or had recently been at his clinic (that in itself could occasionally trigger the depression he was slightly more prone to than the average person anyway, the extent to which only Susan, who never spoke of it if it could be helped, knew) his desire to eat properly dwindled a bit. More often than not, he only ate everything on his plate to avoid the worried stares from Lucy. But Lucy wasn't with them right then, so he must have been genuinely hungry.

"Good morning, Edmund," said Susan, letting go of her brother's wrist and deciding to turn a blind eye while he went for the sausage again, ignoring the fact that she could sense even the grease on his fingers as he wiped them clean on a napkin after swallowing the meat.

"Morning," he said, sitting down in an empty space at Polly's right, wishing he knew for certain where Lucy was going to sit when she came down.

"Did you sleep well?" Polly asked.

"Well enough," he lied.

"Are you looking forward to training?"

"Yeah, sure." Edmund smiled falsely.

"If you make it through your first week, you get to approach a griffin for the very first time on the second one."

"Fascinating," he said as though it were anything but.

"Filthy creatures," Eustace commented.

Aravis glared at him. "I beg your pardon?"

"Griffins," he repeated shamelessly, "nasty things, those."

Edmund understood that Eustace, in his dragon form, had gotten rather a different impression of them than he had, one of pure fear totally lacking in the awe he had felt when they landed on the balcony. But it was a very foolish thing to say so in front of the Riders; so he mouthed, "Shut up," to him and tugged on his ear pointedly, hoping he'd get the hint.

When Eustace did _not_ get the hint, Edmund made eye-contact with Tumnus and nodded, and the faun kicked his fellow traitor's cousin under the table with one of his goat-hooves.

He yelped and pouted, his lower lip trembling slightly.

"Good day, family and honoured guests." Coriakin appeared at the northeastern entryway of the dinning room, dressed today in a sky-blue robe and floor-length white shift.

Deep down, Edmund was strangely flattered that he was included in the star's morning address. He had never been accepted this quickly by a star family before. Knowing he was shaming, working to betray this honest fellow's daughter, did not feel good, but, neither, he knew from past experience, would the witch's whip on his back. Freedom, if he did this one last time and Jadis kept her word, on the other hand, was bound to feel a whole lot better.

Perry and Alexander appeared in the dinning room looking blood-shot and disheveled. Alexander's eyes were bright red; they could hardly have been redder if he had first had a good cry, then rubbed his salty tears into his skin until it became irritated; in fact, this was very nearly what he had been doing. Perry looked worse, though; like he could barely stand up.

Interestingly, Edmund noticed something besides fear in Lord Perry's eyes, something he could relate to very easily; a little emotion known widely by those who suffer from it as guilt.

Whatever the young lord was guilty of, however, Edmund hadn't the foggiest notion. Perhaps his lordship's 'wife' from last night had been taken with morning sickness similar to Alexander's, causing him worry.

It was around this time that Lucy ran into the room decked-out in an elegant gown of pure gold. She spun around twice and smiled broadly at the her family and friends. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was panting slightly.

"Clara finally finished taking it in," Lucy announced happily, beaming. "What do you all think?"

"Ooh!" cried Gael, clapping her hands together, her admiring eyes as big as tea-saucers at the sight of her new sister so marvelously clothed.

"Splendid!" said her father approvingly. "Fits like a glove."

Lucy couldn't help spinning around one more time, watching the glistening fabric shimmer as it settled.

It was one of the most beautiful garments she'd ever worn in her life; it's underlining was of sun-coloured silk and glittering taffeta, and the layer sewn so sweetly over it with such wee golden stitches so delicate they looked like they had been made by the little hands of elves or fairies was of heavy, yet not uncomfortably so, raised gold brocade with the fainest outlining of terracotta and scarlet thread to make the golden light of the petticoat stand out all the more. The sleeves were so long behind her wrists that their warm, ribbon-trimmed tips touched the bottom of her thighs.

"You look like a big gold coin," declared Eustace, sneering at her. "Wearing such absurd clothing is really lowering girls, you know." He shook his head at his currently empty breakfast plate. "Fancy dressing up like a giant's hoard because you _liked_ it!"

Dragon's hoard, Lucy thought, he means dragon's hoard, giants don't collect treasure. Aloud she said, "I don't think it's silly to wear colours, Eustace. Aren't they all Aslan's colours anyhow? He's got a golden coat that _grows_ on him, after all. And besides, look at peacocks and their feathers; they've got more elaborate decorations than the Tisroc of Calormen. And not even Queen Helen, consort of King Frank, wears prettier covering than any of the roses in our hothouse and gardens. Colours are natural."

"You know," said Alexander suddenly, "that gown reminds me of the one Susan wore at the masque during her visit to Cair, what...three years ago?"

"It _is_ that dress," Lucy explained. "I begged Susan to let me have it when she out-grew it. But she was so _tall_!" She was finally tall enough to wear it, but Clara had still needed to take it in a little in some areas, such as the waist and bust, where Susan had been bigger than Lucy at that age.

"I say," said Peter, crinkling his brow, "how do you recognize that dress, Alexander? You weren't at Cair when the masque took place. In fact, I can't recall if you and Perry had even met by then."

"Wait," said Tumnus, also confused. "They're brothers, but they haven't always lived together?"

"Unfortunately," Perry explained, "our parents split up when we were small and we were raised for years very far apart from each other. I spent a lot of time with Coriakin's family, Peter and Susan and I were practically like schoolmates, how often we were thrown together. So naturally when my brother and I were able to join together in the service of the Archenland army, I started bringing him round with me, so that we could all become friends. Little Lucy was a perfect dear, took to him right away, and the rest of the family warmed up to him within the first week."

"I wouldn't go as far as that," Peter teased, winking at Alexander, who he thought looked too somber, like he needed cheering up. "I'd say we put up with him well enough."

Alexander put his hand to his forehead. "I need to go lie down."

"You've not had breakfast," said Susan.

"I'm not very hungry." Alexander left the room with his hand now pressed against his mouth, again.

Edmund noticed that he never had answered that question about recognizing Susan's/Lucy's dress.

"I still remember how everyone talked about how grown up Susan looked when she first wore that gown," Polly laughed. "I told them I wished she _would_ grow up."

"Proud as anything," Coriakin added sentimentally. "And with every reason to be so. I never saw anyone who looked as beautiful as your mother before you out-shown her at that masque."

Lucy felt a prick of envy stab at her. Susan was the beautiful one; the one who wore the gown better than her, even though she hadn't admired and waited longingly for it as Lucy had, putting it on whenever she had the chance and aching for the day when it would fit, wondering what it would be like to wear it.

Clara had teased her two years ago, saying that at the rate she was growing, it would be her wedding day before she got to wear the golden gown in public.

"Actually, I'm tallest in my class," Lucy had retorted, a little stung.

Moreover, Susan looked like Mum. Lucy had always wanted so much to look like their late mother, but she had taken most of her looks from her father's side the family, only none of the same ones that softened whatever small fault that could have possibly been found in their mortal's mother's face, making Susan's perfect and unmarred, just as a star's should be.

Peter didn't need to be able to sense his baby sister's thoughts like he could his twin's to know that she felt a little rejected by everybody turning the subject to Susan's beauty like that. He didn't know the extent to which it bothered her, but he knew-and understood-that she must feel left out, coming down to show them _her_ gown and having them all basically tell her Susan looked more fetching in it than she ever would.

"Don't worry, Lu, you look perfectly..." Peter tried to think of a good adjective. "Um...perfectly... Adequate."

"Adequate," Lucy repeated dully, furrowing her brow.

Tumnus looked over at Edmund, as if silently urging him to take this curtain call and kick the act up a notch. If he wanted her to like him, now would be an ideal time to say something kind and flattering to her.

The problem was, Edmund couldn't come up with anything. He definitely thought she looked much, much better than 'adequate', but he couldn't think of a better word at the moment. He felt tongue-tied and too greatly pressured. She looked like the sun or a guardian angel from an old folktale watching over the innocent protagonists as they slept; but of course, such sentiments were far more easily thought than spoken aloud.

Tumnus tried one more time. "Edmund, say something," he mouthed.

Edmund's stomach growled. "So, um, when do we eat?"

"When do we eat?" the faun mouthed back incredulously. How this same clueless boy managed to charm all those other girls, he would never understand.

"Oh, dear me," laughed Coriakin, shaking his head and sitting down. "I've kept you all waiting. We can have conversation at any hour, but hungry times in my house are for feasting. Please eat."

To Edmund's surprise, Lucy took an empty seat next to him. Now that she was closer, he admired the effect wearing her hair completely loose without so much as a single ribbon or pinned curl had on the angelic look the gold clothing gave her. Somehow misleading an angel felt worse than leading a puppy to it's untimely demise; not to mention less justified.

With the sun trickling in through the window to the far right of the table and illuminating her face, Lucy looked like innocence personified, some protective child-spirit sent to make this last trial worse than all those proceeding it.

Had Jadis done that on purpose? Was she testing how committed he was to gaining freedom for himself and the other Traitors?

Coriakin clapped his hands together and Clara and about seven Dufflepuds came out and lifted the lids off of the silver dishes.

"I hope," said the star, "that is what you would all like."

There were platters of rainbow trout imported from Cair Paravel (not entirely fresh but still retaining the majority of their rich flavor), deer sausage, yellow omelets with steamed vegetables, bacon, butter and toast, sliced oranges, cherry turnovers, some kind of rich breakfast cake with cream, cheese danishes dripping with icing, and doughy loafs sprinkled with blue and green sugar.

"It's lovely," said Lucy.

Tumnus couldn't remember the last time he'd had so nice a breakfast, and said so.

Even Eustace couldn't come up with any complaints, except that, perhaps, it 'wasn't good' for the stomach to have so much 'rich stuff' first thing in the morning.

"Bother what's good for my stomach," said Edmund, helping himself to the sausage and toast. "Recall the days when we hadn't got so much as a good scrap, then look at the table again, and you tell me if it's too rich for our bellies."

That comment made Lucy concerned. Did Edmund not get enough to eat where he lived? "What do you have for breakfast at your home?"

Edmund stuffed his mouth even fuller so that he would have a minute of chewing and swallowing before he had to answer.

Because, of course, it was complicated. If they had enough luck with the money Jadis gave them, trading or using it, they brought non-perishable foods back with them to Charn. But if they didn't, and they had to rely sorely on the food she allowed them to have there, they were lucky enough to get a hunk of dried bread on a steel plate and a tin cup of water that their tongues and lips didn't stick to.

"Bread," was the big pay-off to all that chewing, followed by a half-shrug.

"Narnia's not going to run out of toast, Ed," she said softly as Edmund crammed another slice of toast into his mouth after practically drowning it in as much butter as it could physically hold.

He smiled weakly. "Sorry."

"You know what would go great with this butter?" said Eustace, glancing up from his plate. "Lobster."

"For breakfast?" Tumnus scrunched up his nose.

"I thought you were a vegetarian," Edmund commented.

"Fish isn't meat."

"Lobster isn't a fish," said Polly.

"Surprised you didn't know that, Eustace," Edmund put in.

"Crab is better than lobster," Aravis claimed.

"There is no way crab is better than lobster, you don't know what you're talking about," Peter stated.

"No, she's right, crab is better," Susan said.

"When I'm free," Eustace declared, "I'm going to eat lobster every day at tea."

"Free from what?" Lucy and Susan both looked at him curiously.

Edmund shot his cousin a look to kill; he was not working his behind off so that Useless over there could blow everything up in his face. "He means free from debt, Lucy," he invented quickly. "We have some debt issues. Part of our business, awful dull stuff. Don't let's talk about it."

"What _is_ your business, Mr. Maugrim?" Peter wanted to know.

"Uh..." he stammered.

"Well it's..." Tumnus fumbled.

"Clearly it's..." Even know-it-all Eustace had nothing.

"Hunting," Edmund came up with, thinking that if he could kill a few non-talking animals as a wolf when no one was looking then carry them back in a sack, this could be their cover for a little while.

"Publishing," blurted Eustace, unfortunately at the same time as his cousin said hunting.

"So which is it?" asked Susan, looking puzzled. "Hunting or publishing?"

"Both," Edmund said hurriedly.

"So, can you use a bow and arrows?" asked Aravis, curiously.

"Not, you know, too well..." Edmund scratched absently at the back of his neck.

"Can you set traps?"

"Well..." said Eustace.

"Then how do you hunt?"

"Obviously that's why we had to add publishing," Tumnus came up with. "We weren't doing well hunting without the extra income."

"What do you publish?" Lucy asked, much more curious about that than the hunting, thinking maybe that was why they-especially Eustace-were so interested in books.

"Oh, you know, this and that," said Edmund vaguely.

"I see..." Lucy replied, sounding very confused.

"This is excellent, Coriakin." Edmund turned to Lucy's father, not really paying attention to which food he was pointing at when he said it; it didn't matter so long as he could use it to change the subject. "How do you make it?"

Coriakin's brow furrowed. "You expose the bread to heat?"

Edmund looked now at what he had pointed to: more toast.

"So, does anyone have plans for this afternoon?" said Peter, to break the awkward silence that always follows whenever someone disproves the old adage: there's no such thing as a stupid question.

"I wanted to go for a walk and see the village-folk gathering wood for the bonfire tonight," Lucy said, looking excited.

"There's going to be a bonfire?" asked Edmund, as it seemed a fairly interesting and-more importantly-safe topic.

"More like series of small fire-pits," Peter explained, munching on a piece of bacon. "It's a yearly tradition, roughly around this time. Everyone sits in a groups around the different pits and tells or reads stories aloud."

"And they always have marshmallows," Lucy added brightly.

"Well, of course," said Peter, a little patronizingly (he couldn't help it), "that's the best part."

"It sounds like fun," Edmund commented.

"It's terribly unsafe," huffed Eustace. "How do you know one of you won't set off a spark and burn the whole Western Woods down one of these days?"

"Ignore him," said Edmund, "he doesn't know how to have fun."

"And _you_ do?" Eustace countered. "I mean, remember the time you got apprehended?"

"Tumnus..." His eyes widened with desperation.

"I thought you would never ask." The faun hit Eustace upside the head.

Peter's eyes narrowed; he wanted to be sure this chap his little Lucy had readily befriended wasn't disreputable. "You were apprehended?"

"Only, you know, once, over night..." Edmund resisted the urge to slump in his chair. He made a mental note to smear Eustace's ear with berry juice again, just to make him remember his place.

"What did you do?"

He had gotten caught purchasing, then chewing, Toffee-Leaves in a dark alley in Archenland. "Nothing," he lied. "It was a false charge. They caught the real criminal the next morning." Really, Jadis had had to send Ammi to bail him out.

"So, Edmund, do you want to come with me and see them preparing for tonight?" Lucy offered, thinking it might be more fun with a friend.

"Yeah, I'd like that."

"I'll have Clara fix you a picnic luncheon to take with you, in case you should get hungry," Coriakin announced, smiling at his daughter.

"Thank you, Father."

Edmund sighed. If Peter was this concerned about his little sister, making sure she wasn't keeping company with crooks, when she was perfectly safe at home, how was the poor chap going to react when one day (and this would have to happen eventually if things went according to plan) Lucy went out and never came back? It would probably kill him. In spite of himself and everything else, Edmund couldn't help admiring Peter. He felt a sort of kinship to him; maybe it was the natural fellowship of two young men who, though for different reasons, could not fulfill their dreams of becoming knights, even if they both didn't consciously _know_ that the other suffered similarly.

I can do this, Edmund thought, I can betray them, one more family.

What scared him was how unconvincing the voice in his head already sounded.


	7. Of Window Shopping and Bad Backs

When Lucy arrived at the stables (because Coriakin's mansion had it's own stalls and horses, naturally) wearing a black doublet and hose, her hair neatly braided down her back, Edmund felt like he got his second wind. The voice in his head became a little more cocky; without the golden dress, she did look much more ordinary, and he scolded himself inwardly for letting his imagination turn her into something she wasn't-something separate from business and separate from all the other girls on his conscience.

He came up with three ground rules in case his mind decided to play any more tricks on him in the future: 1) He could do this, 2) He _would_ do this, and 3) If ever he thought again that he couldn't/wouldn't do this, he was to redirect his mind to rules one and two immediately.

Taking a deep breath, he laughed, "All right, I give up. Why are we meeting in the stables?" Edmund made himself smile at her. "I thought we were going for a walk."

"We are," said Lucy, smiling back. "We're just going to take the horses down the hill and into the heart of the village. When we get near the shops and fire-pits, then we can walk around and look at everything."

There were only about six horses or so in the stable, and two of them were the dapple-gray war horses that belonged to Perry and Alexander.

"This one's mine." Lucy pointed to an extremely pretty white horse who snorted and extended her neck, nudging her mistress's arm, hoping for a lump of sugar. "Her name's Snowflake."

"What about this fellow?" Edmund gestured at a large black mare.

"Ah, that's Coalblack, Susan's horse."

"What's Peter's horse called?"

"Coalblack," Lucy laughed. "You see, Peter named his horse first, and, well, imagination was never my sister's strong point..."

Edmund suppressed a chuckle. "Oh." Then, "So who do I ride?"

"Phillip," said Lucy, pointing at a brown gelding, who's head reared up at the sound of his name.

There was something about this brown horse, though he wasn't quite as strikingly good-looking as the others, that made him seem different; like he was more intelligent. There was an extra sparkle in his eye that was wholly absent in Lucy's beloved Snowflake and Susan and Peter's Coalblacks.

"But," she went on, "you will have to ask his permission first. He's a _Talking_ horse, not a dumb creature like these others."

Edmund snorted self-righteously. "I've never _asked_ a horse if I can ride it in my entire life, and I'm certainly not going to start now."

Lucy's brow lowered itself and she pouted seriously. "You don't mean you feel superior to him?"

"Of course I do!" Edmund rolled his eyes.

"Listen to me," Lucy said sternly when his eyes met hers again; "you _feel_ superior, but you are _not_."

"Lucy," he said, cocking his head, "if I'm not higher on the chain of life than he is, why would he carry me on his back in the first place?"

"Well," huffed Lucy, folding her arms across her chest, "I'm sure he _wouldn't_ , if you keep that attitude!"

"You really want me to ask the horse?" sighed Edmund. If he was going keep earning her trust, he might have to bite the bullet, however embarrassing it would be. He had, of course, talked to Talking animals before, but he had never lowered himself to ask their permission for anything. But, then, now that he thought of it, aside from Jadis, he never really asked permission for anything from what he perceived as 'higher life forms', either.

"I only want you to do the right thing," Lucy said meekly.

"Fine, make it Pax, but you have to help me out," he told her, reddening slightly. "I mean, what am I even supposed to say? 'Pardon me, might I saddle you now?'"

The terse look on her face softened considerably and a light giggle escaped her lips. "You could start by introducing yourself; but keep the pardon bit in there, since Phillip probably heard everything you just said."

Edmund approached the brown horse. "What-ho, Horsey?"

"My _name_ is Phillip." The gelding let out a peevish-sounding whinny.

"Phillip," said Lucy, realizing that she would have to be the one to rise up to the occasion, "Edmund is a friend of mine, and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind carrying him down into the village while I ride alongside on Snowflake."

"Why didn't he say so?" snorted Phillip, jerking his head up and down.

"He..." Lucy glanced back at him. "He doesn't understand. I don't think he's ever had anyone to teach him about Aslan and the difference between Talking animals and dumb beasts."

"Perhaps I'm just not cut out to be a proper Narnian," Edmund said, shrugging. "Whatever else I am."

"I wouldn't go that far," replied Lucy, shooting him a very kind facial expression that made him feel momentarily sick to his stomach with guilt till he reminded himself of his three new rules and it settled miraculously.

"I will take him as far as the start of the village," agreed Phillip, gently nuzzling Lucy's neck with his muzzle. "As a favor to my favorite Ramandu child."

She giggled and gently pushed the horse's snout away from her. "That tickles."

Great, not only was there a mansion full of half-stars and noble _people_ that loved this girl who was going to vanish without a trace if he didn't fail miserably, but even the smelly, blabbering horse loved her! This was so typical, thought Edmund, frustrated.

He was actually thankful that Lucy took to talking about Aslan on the way to the village; even though it wasn't a very long way to go, and at first he wasn't terribly interested in what she had to say, more concerned with his own problems, as he tried to let his mind get off of his worries so he could pull this off without losing what was left of his mind into the bargain, Edmund began to all but lap up the information about the Great Lion of Narnia.

It _was_ interesting; he'd been a little curious at the start, but by the time they were at the bottom of the hill, Lucy's tales of Aslan held his attention unwaveringly.

She lost his serious admiration for a moment, however, when she mentioned that Aslan had _sang_ up Narnia and the surrounding lands into existence.

"Now you're teasing me," Edmund said flat-out.

"I'm not," Lucy insisted, bringing Snowflake to a halt and tying her to an iron ring (Phillip, naturally, didn't need to be tied; he would be wandering as free as they would until it was time to go back).

"No, you _are_ ," he retorted. "It sounds impossible."

"Impossible," she repeated. "What does that mean?"

"It means unbelievable, incredible."

Lucy looked very thoughtful. "So just because something's incredible, it can't happen?"

"That's right," said Edmund, climbing off of Phillip's back.

"So you've never seen anything incredible in your life?" Lucy asked pointedly.

"Not as incredible as a lion singing and creating worlds, no."

"Where do you think everything came from, then?"

"I don't know." He wrinkled his nose and shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe it just appeared."

"Do you think the mansion I live in just _appeared_?"

"Well, of course not."

"Why?" She arched an eyebrow. "You didn't _see_ it being built, did you?"

"No."

"You seem awfully sure."

"Of course!" exclaimed Edmund, looking over his shoulder at the extravagantly large mansion on the hill. "I mean, it would be an insult to whoever made it if I said it just..." His voice trailed off and his eyes widened; his mouth formed a distinctive O, and he couldn't think of anything else to say to counter that. Lucy was a lot wiser, it seemed, than he gave her due credit for.

"By Jove, Ed, I believe you got it." She took his hand and started to lead him over towards a strip of well maintained pasture only a little ways off from the village they were standing in front of. "Come, I want to show you the fire-pit the family sits at every year."

For a 'small fire-pit', it was fairly large, but not unreasonably so; after all, it had to fit all of Lucy's family, and likely her friends as well, and it wouldn't do to have them all crammed together in a tight, hot space; they'd all end up hating each other by the time twenty minutes had gone by if it was _too_ small. It was well dug out in the rich, soft earth and surrounded by white and gray stones.

Bigger stones, carved like benches, some even with the symbols of Lions and Stars etched into their sides, were in front of these for the Ramandu family to sit on. One of these stones had _S and R_ carved into it, then scratched out with what looked like slashes from a pocket-knife about fifty million times.

"What's that?" Edmund wanted to know, gesturing to the knife-scribbles.

Lucy laughed and tossed her head back. "Oh, that's where Susan sits. She had a suitor named Rabadash a few years ago; it...didn't work out..."

"Not Rabadash the crown prince of Calormen?" His face recoiled like he smelled something rotten.

"That's him," sighed Lucy. "Do you know him, Ed?"

"Yes, disgusting man." Edmund gritted his teeth. They'd made each other's acquaintance during his short stay in Calormen, and naturally they hadn't exactly hit it off.

"Oh, you _do_ know him," said Lucy, gathering that much from his accurate two-word description. "Where did you meet?"

"In Calormen." It was all right to say this much; after all, Lucy knew he spoke Calormene, since she heard him yelling at the neighbours in their native tongue.

"What happened?"

"We got into a fight."

"No!" gasp-laughed Lucy, trying to picture the prissy fellow her sister had courted against their brother's orders then decided she would rather eat dirt than be stuck married to boxing with Edmund; somehow she had a pretty fair idea of who would have won that match. Unless, of course, there were swords involved; Rabadash was pathetic, but he could wield a curved Calormene sword all right.

Edmund half-grinned at the memory. "I won, by the way."

"How?"

"He got stuck to a hook on the wall and I refused to help him down." Edmund paused for a moment, recalling the look on the prince's face. "I was going to pull him down and keep trying to beat his lights out, but...well...someone told me to just leave him, so I did."

"He could have hung you for that, you know," said Lucy, sort of quietly, her shoulders shaking from holding back laughter in spite of the seriousness of her tone.

"He bloody well tried!" Edmund snorted.

"How did you escape?" Lucy took her hand off of her mouth and, sitting down on one of the stone benches, folded both hands into her lap.

He would have loved to lie and say he did it all on his own, with his own cunning and wit, but truthfully he hadn't, and it wouldn't hurt to at least show _some_ humility, considering he had been a real ass about Phillip earlier. "Someone hid me when Rabadash's men came and told them I had already left."

"Where were you when they came, anyway?" Lucy asked curiously, her eyes wide. "In the Tisroc's palace?"

"Come on, Lu, do you really think _I_ would be allowed in the palace?"

She considered. "Well, I don't know, Edmund, but you couldn't have been among commoners; Rabadash considers them lower than dogs and wouldn't go near them."

"He's hardly one to talk," he muttered.

"Tell me about it," she agreed. "So, where were you?"

"A broth-" Edmund started, then, realizing how that would sound and what even an innocent like Lucy might wrongly assume he was there for (and even if she didn't, she could always mention it to her brother, and then Peter would never let him within ten feet of her again), immediately stopped. "I mean an entertainer's house," he amended in the nick of time.

"What kind of entertainer?"

"Just some dancers," coughed Edmund (that wasn't completely a lie; a lot of the women there danced professionally) as offhandedly as he could manage.

"Was it one of them that hid you from Rabadash's men?"

"Yes," he said.

"You were very fortunate to have found a friend there," said Lucy.

"Well, I was more free with my coins than Prince Rabadash," Edmund laughed. "You could hardly expect her to let them drag me out into the square and hang me when she had expenses that needed covering."

"So you think she protected you for the money?"

He shrugged. "Who knows why women do anything."

"Do you have any sisters, Edmund?" she asked. "Or brothers?"

For a moment he looked away from her, then, looking back in her direction, he whispered, "I don't know." In a clearer tone, he added, "If I do, probably not full ones, anyway."

"Where's your mum?"

He shook his head, closing the subject on his end. "Where's _yours_?"

"She died." Lucy blinked back a few stray tears and wiped her nose on her doublet sleeve. "She went in her sleep. Peter says it was painless. I believe him because there was a smile on her face, like she was still sleeping, and having good dreams."

Awkwardly, Edmund placed the palm of his hand over one of her shoulders. "I'm sorry."

Lucy leaned against the back of his hand, accepting his comfort. "Hey, it's all right. I'll see her again. I can't help crying a little, though, sometimes."

"How do you mean?" He released her shoulder and sat down beside her. "Dead people don't come back. Not ever, Lucy. Didn't anyone ever tell you that?"

"Of course they do," said Lucy, a little shocked. "Who told you they _didn't_?"

"Um, every single person I've ever met...except for you, obviously."

"They come back in Aslan's country," said Lucy, her eyes glowing with wistfulness.

"You don't mean he's got his own country?" Edmund exclaimed.

"Yes, of course he does!" She couldn't help getting a little overexcited; she had never met a Narnian so nearly a heathen in her life. "And all true Narnians go there at the end of time; Aslan will bring them all together there."

"Aslan's quite the over-achiever, isn't he?" Edmund smirked cockily.

"Edmund!" she elbowed him in the ribs.

"Nah, it's good that you believe you have something to look forward to," he told her honestly. "I wish I did."

"I believe you will," said Lucy gently. "Someday."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yes."

"Can you have faith in something you don't know?"

"Of a sort, I think," Lucy mulled, pursing her lips in deep thought. "If that something knows you."

"What if you never find whatever it is that knows you?"

"That's just it," she replied. "You wouldn't have to; it would find you. Or maybe you sort of both find each other."

"What if it doesn't give a fig about me?"

"Maybe it needs you to care first."

"You mean the Lion, don't you?"

"What else would I mean?"

"Tell you what," Edmund said. "When you get to Aslan's country, you be sure to send me a post-card."

They talked for a few hours, chatting away like old pals, like small children who have run into an ideal playmate and haven't another care-or agenda-on their minds. Even Edmund was able to let himself momentarily forget what he was meant to do to poor Lucy P Ramandu and simply enjoy her company without being _too_ over-ridden with guilt. Their conversation flowed steadily; Edmund liked it when Lucy said something that made him want to laugh...he even liked it when she said things, queer things that made very little sense when put to the test of the sort of logic he'd been raised on, that made him want to cry.

While they talked they could see fauns and dryads and naiads, as well as a few humans (village folk, mostly) carrying firewood to the various pits, preparing them for tonight.

A faun who must have been Clara's cousin or something, because he looked a great deal like her, dropped some wood in their pit and told Lucy to give his best to her father.

Eventually they became hungry, their growling stomachs impeding whatever their current topic of conversation had been, and Edmund peered curiously at the picnic basket Clara had fixed for them and Lucy had carried all the way here.

There were chicken sandwiches wrapped in cloth napkins, some kind of salad with red peppers in a covered dish with hinges that latches closed for easy transportation, two flasks of lemon-water, a little box full of six different kinds of cheese cubes, some Toffee-Fruit (no leaves, naturally), a loaf of white-flour bread in a sack, and a half-pound of the leftover hart from a precious supper.

"Does Clara think she's feeding the two of us, or half the population of the village?" Edmund asked sarcastically.

"Maybe she noticed how much you ate at breakfast," Lucy teased.

"In that case, she should have packed a box of matches so I could turn this bread into toast," he countered.

"She probably thought you wouldn't know how," she could help adding cheekily.

"I'm cut in two by your wit," Edmund said, pretend-sadly. Instantly brightening, "Oh, look, I'm over it. All better. Let's eat."

Lucy picked up the cheese box, revealing two small sphere-like objects made of silver.

"What's that?" asked Edmund, helping himself to the cheese.

Lucy's whole face lit up. "I think Clara packed us some ice cream." She fingered the top of one of the silver insulated canisters.

"Is that like anything like sherbert?" Edmund asked, working on the hart now as if he were afraid it would spoil in five seconds unless he downed as much of it as possible (he hated to waste good food).

Lucy gaped at him opened-mouthed, almost dropping the piece of cheese she'd just picked up. "You've never had ice cream?"

"I had sherbert in Calormen." He shrugged his shoulders. "But, no, I never had a chance to try ice cream."

"You're in for a treat," Lucy told him. "Clara likes to put cake crumbs in hers. She doesn't let the Dufflepuds make the ice cream anymore, not since they upset the cream five years ago and the cat lapped most of it up."

"Those Dufflepuds would be fired anywhere else," Edmund said, wiping his fingers on his doublet. "Your father is too kind to them, Lucy."

"I heard it was a punishment," Lucy said, in a lower voice. "I don't know what it is that father did, but they saddled him with those Dufflepuds for it."

"Didn't you ever ask?"

"Of course, but he said it wasn't for a little girl to know the sins a full-blooded star can commit. He says mortals aren't supposed to know too much about that kind of thing."

"All grown-ups say stuff like that when they don't want to answer children's questions, Lu. Sounds like 'children should be seen and not heard,' to me."

"Did anyone ever say that to you?"

"I wish," he said. "I learned a somewhat different lesson."

"What was the lesson?"

"To shut up when you're told to, or you die."

Lucy blinked at him, horror-stricken; a piece of lettuce-wrapped pepper fell off of her fork and into her lap with a light _plop_.

He forced himself to laugh, even throwing back his shoulders in an exaggerated gesture, trying to make it sound as if it was entirely a joke, when, really, it wasn't that far off from a true account of his upbringing. You didn't exactly _die_ if you stepped out of line, but you did jolly well come close, that was for sure.

After the meal was over, Lucy cleaned up the picnic supplies and took out the ice cream. "Feel like looking at the shop windows while we eat it?"

"Sure," Edmund agreed, picking up the basket and hiding it under one of the stone benches while Lucy showed him how to flip back the silver lid over the ice cream. "Say, Lu, how does it keep cold?"

"The silver is insulated."

"I wish I had something like that." He thought woefully of the rare times he had a little scrap of something good to eat, more than he could finish in one sitting, but couldn't keep it from spoiling and had to abandon it or give it away.

"If you like it so much," Lucy said kindly, "you can keep it. I can have it brought to your room after the Dufflepuds wash it out."

"You can give it away, just like that?"

"I don't see why not, it's my silver anyhow." She surveyed the size of the little silver canister regretfully. "I don't think it will fit anything much bigger than a snowball, though."

"This vanilla ice cream kind of looks like a snowball," Edmund stated, bringing the spoon out of his mouth. "But it tastes a lot better."

"And how do you know what a snowball tastes like?" she giggled.

Edmund smirked. "I tried to eat one once, obviously." He gestured at her pointedly with his spoon. "I also found out the hard way that when snow is yellow, it's not always from reflecting the sunset."

"Ew!" exclaimed Lucy, suddenly wondering if she would even be able to finish her ice cream after hearing that particular story.

Edmund, however, seemed to have no problem with continuing to wolf down _his_. "Eustace made fun of me, so I told him to go stick his tongue to a frozen pillar."

"He didn't do it, though, right?"

"Oh, no, he _did_. It takes a while sometimes, but eventually he tends to do what I tell him to." Edmund sighed, shaking his head. "But the real joke was on me, since I had to help him get unstuck."

Lucy stopped walking; Edmund didn't notice for a minute, still talking until he realized there was no one beside him. "Wait, I'm alone." He went back a few steps. "Lucy?"

She was staring into a shop window at a long, thick hooded green velvet cloak draped over a very bland-looking, tan-coloured manikin with no head. "Look at that, Edmund. Isn't it pretty?"

"Very nice," he agreed, finishing the last of his ice cream and snapping the silver canister closed. "Why don't you get it?"

"Oh, I don't need another winter cloak," said Lucy, beginning to walk again. "I was just admiring it."

Edmund glanced over his shoulder at the cloak to embed in his memory which one it was she liked; considering what Lucy was going to go through if all went according to plan, a new cloak to keep her extra warm on the way couldn't hurt. He had every intention of coming back here once he'd found a way to exchange his Charnian coins for Narnian ones. It occurred to him that he'd never even thought of doing something like that for any of the other demistar girls and felt a pang of regret. Oh well, this last time he would rectify that over-sight; even if he couldn't keep her safe, he would keep her warm. Jadis wouldn't like that; she liked to see them suffer bitter cold along with everything else. But that was one bit of satisfaction Edmund did not intend to give the witch this time around. She would still get what she wanted, and the Traitors would get their freedom. He wouldn't let her grudge him this one less thing off of his burdensome conscience.

When they went back to the mansion to get ready for the bonfire, Edmund found Tumnus and Eustace in his room, waiting for him. Tumnus was in a chair by the window, practicing on his little pipe-like instrument and watching the road behind the house, and Eustace was sprawled out across his bed with half-closed eyes.

"So, how did everything go?" Tumnus asked, dragging the mouthpiece away from his lips and looking up.

"Yes, I _would_ like some time to myself," Edmund said sardonically; "thanks for asking." To Eustace, he said, "And you! Get off my bed at once."

"Does she like you?" Tumnus pressed on.

"Yeah, tons," Edmund grunted. "Can you please go?"

"Did you talk about me?" Eustace wanted to know.

"Are you kidding?" He widened his eyes at his cousin and stood with one hand on his hip. "We didn't talk about anything _but_ you."

"Wow, really?"

"Uh, no!" Edmund hit Eustace upside the head.

"But for the record, it went well?" Tumnus said.

Edmund nodded. "I think so."

"All right." Tumnus accepted this, looking more relieved than he did pleased. "Did you think of what you're going to say to her at the bonfire tonight?"

"I'm going to wing it," Edmund told him. "It's been working so far."

"So, how long do you think we'll need to wait before you pull the vanishing act?"

"Considering that she's known me for, what, three days?" Edmund took a moment to count on his fingers. "I'm guessing we won't have to linger here too long."

"Good, Jadis said if that if we dragged it out this time she would be sure to saw off my horns when we got back." Tumnus grimaced and tightened his grip on his instrument.

"If we have to be worried about her hurting anyone," Eustace chimed in, "it's Ammi. I mean, she's still there; we're here."

Edmund's expression dropped. "What?"

"You can't tell me you didn't think it, too, Cousin." Eustace sighed. "I mean, why else would she keep Ammi there _this_ time?"

"You might have bloody well said something at the time of departure!" Edmund snapped, wondering if he should hit his cousin again or just threaten him.

He snorted, " _I_ didn't want to get left behind with Jadis."

"Eustace is right," Tumnus said, a little dejectedly. "She might just be keeping her as the stick behind us, our freedom being the carrot."

"Our freedom is a _carrot_?" Eustace wrinkled his nose.

"One little flaw," Edmund pointed out. "Why would Jadis think any of us care what happens to Ammi? You two barely talk to her for weeks, sometimes."

"I think she had you in particular on her mind in this case, Edmund," said Tumnus.

"Ammi isn't anything to me, she must know that." Edmund tried to figure out the White Witch's line of logic in this instance; and came up with nothing.

"Edmund, you asked her to marry you and run away from Charn _how_ many times?" Tumnus felt the need to point out. He personally would have thought it was time to give it up after that tome was hurled at his head, but that was just him; Edmund evidently didn't see it that way.

"Eight, by my count," Eustace muttered. "And thanks awfully for offering to take me with you, Cousin!"

"You would have slowed us down." He waved him off; it was unimportant. "Anyway, you know why I asked her."

"Personally, I think a lot of Toffee-Leaves went into that decision," Tumnus said under his breath.

"I was in excruciating pain and we didn't have any healing herbs!" Edmund exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air out of frustration. "What was I _supposed_ to do? Besides, they're not illegal in Charn."

"Keep your voice a little lower," Tumnus warned him. "Remember who's home we're in."

Edmund nodded. "Fair enough."

"You have some here, don't you?" Tumnus scanned the room warily.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about." He knew exactly what the faun was talking about, and made sure not to let his eyes drift over towards the draw in the nightstand the bag of Toffee-Leaves were currently hidden in.

As soon as Tumnus and Eustace vacated his room, Edmund decided he had better change. He didn't have a whole lot of options; most of his doublets and tunics looked the same, but he had a tunic with little red and brown autumn leaves embroidered at the hem that looked a little nicer than what he had on.

Unfortunately, Eustace hadn't closed the door all the way when he left, so it was still open a crack; enough, anyway, for Lucy, who was trotting down the hallway carrying something in her arms, to be able to see into the room as Edmund, his back to her, was lifting up his tunic and under-shift.

All across his back were countless brutal marks that looked like barely-healed, partly crusted-over lashes from a whip; some of them appeared to have been there for a long, long time, but several others looked like they had to have been more recent. The worst part was that many of the new marks actually went over the old lashes, obviously making them smart again at the very least.

Startled, Lucy gasped and dropped what she was holding.

Edmund turned around and noticed her standing there.

"Does that hurt?" she whispered.

"What do you think?" He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. "You weren't supposed to see that." The last star-blood girl hadn't; but it seemed as though Lucy were determined to be an exception to all of the usual patterns and rules of the witch's cruel games. He opened his eyes again.

"I'm so sorry," said Lucy, almost trembling. She got down on her knees to pick up what she'd dropped. "Forgive my intrusion, I was just bringing..." Her eyes widened as she got another glimpse of his back as he bent down to help her. "What _happened_?"

"So what's all this?" He purposefully avoided giving her an answer.

"Oh, Clara thought you might want some of Peter's old tunics," Lucy explained, showing now that the bulky items in her arms had been some previously neatly folded tunics of very fine quality. "He's out-grown them, and she would have offered them to Eustace as well, but he's almost as small as Alexander."

"I didn't know my clothes looked that bad," Edmund said, taking the tunics graciously anyway.

"They don't," Lucy assured him wearily. "Really."

"You're crying." He noticed tears forming in her eyes and starting to brim over.

Lucy bit her lower lip to stop it from trembling.

Edmund could tell she was trying not to stare at his shredded back. "Hey, it's all right, I'm fine. I...I've gotten used to it." He sat down on the floor beside her. "I told you before: I don't need people feeling sorry for me."

Lucy swallowed and took a deep breath. A couple of her tears ran down the bridge of her nose and landed on the floor in front of her, making two tiny splashes.

"Lucy, look at me."

She did.

He wiped lightly at her eyes with his thumb. "There. When you feel like crying, why don't you just do what I do?"

"What's that?" Lucy asked curiously.

"Think of somebody who annoys the living daylights out of you and become angry instead of sad." Edmund started to stand up, then offered her his hand. "With me, it's Eustace."

Lucy managed a smile. "You're still coming tonight?" she double-checked, wondering how he did all the things he did with a back like that; taking that tumble on the balcony when he was facing that dragon must have made him hurt like crazy.

"Wouldn't miss it."

"I'll see you downstairs in an hour, then." She nodded and slowly backed away, taking one last look at her friend standing there before shutting the door behind herself, feeling terrible even though it wasn't her fault.


	8. Fire & Fairytales

Sitting with the Ramandu family around the fire crackling in their pit, Edmund watched Lucy accidentally stick her marshmallow-on-a-stick too far into the fire and burn it. He _could_ have warned her it was about to burn to an inedible crisp, but then he would have lost his chance to give her his in its place.

It was a overly simplistic, rookie move, but Lucy seemed like the sort of person who would appreciate the small things like that. Tumnus seemed to agree with this, quietly lifting his hands and pantomiming an applause.

"Thanks," said Lucy, taking the stick from him gratefully and biting the marshmallow off of it.

"Hmm," murmured Eustace to himself, thoughtfully. He tried to hand his own marshmallow-on-a-stick over to the girl sitting closest to him, which happened to be Polly the Griffin Rider, but instead of thanking him, she just furrowed her brow and said, "I've already got one," lifting up her own stick with a perfectly toasted marshmallow skewered at its tip.

Tumnus shook his head hard, as if there was a buzzing bee caught in one of his ears, willing himself not to laugh aloud at Eustace's failed attempts to act like his cousin.

Things seemed to be going well; Coriakin left his family's pit shortly after the first round of marshmallows were finished and a fresh batch and new sticks for the people who accidentally or absentmindedly had dropped theirs into the fire were handed out, and was off talking to another oldish-looking fellow from the village; Tumnus appeared more confident in Edmund's intuition after seeing him hand his marshmallow over to Lucy, and had decided to show this by wandering off with Clara to another pit where two satyrs were sitting, taking little Gael with them; so it was mainly the young persons (Peter, Susan, Aravis, Perry and Alexander, Polly, Edmund and Lucy) left behind by the time a large book of fairy tales was brought out.

It was Lucy's book; or, at least, it was her father's and she had taken it out of the mansion's library with his permission.

The remarkable thing about this particular book was that it was magic. Not magic like spells or omens, not bad magic; more like charged stardust. A harmless star-charmed item used for amusement on special occasions was not at all the same thing as a witch's cauldron.

This lovely over-sized copper-spine tome with rich, loopy golden Narnian script letters and no title page had the incredible ability to create pictures as you were reading it; pictures that could appear in exactly the right places at exactly the right times. It could be eerie and unsettling if you weren't used it, but it was also a lot of fun. And the book naturally made Lucy's family's fire-pit quite popular when the bonfire's story-time hit its high point.

They drew names written on parchment out of an old black bowler hat for who got to read aloud first. Susan's name was drawn; and though she had a smooth, steady voice, it was very unsuited to fantasies and fables, so the person who's name was drawn next (it was Peter) and got to decide what story she read, took mercy on everybody present by choosing a fairly short one. (The rule was actually that the last person to read got to pick the story for the next person they passed the book to, in a counter-clockwise order starting with the person who's name was first picked out of the hat, but since the first person didn't have predecessor to choose their story, another name was picked for that purpose, just to get things moving.)

Polly was the only one who commented that, just once, she would personally like to see what happened if Susan had to contend with a longer story, one that had enough time to make pictures and shoot off light from the pages; in other words, build up to being interesting even if it started off slow.

"She would read it wrong anyway," Peter said offhandedly; "all of the facts, none of the flavor."

"There aren't any facts in fairy-tales," Eustace pointed out, a little haughtily.

"Trust me," Peter sighed, "Su finds them anyway."

"May I _please_ just read already?" Susan glared at them.

"Aw, Su, you know we love you," Peter said, patting her on the shoulder.

"Yeah, it's not your fault you're a terrible story-teller," said Perry, unhelpfully.

Alexander scowled at him and punched him on the arm. "Shut up, you're going to make her feel bad!"

"Just one bloody year I would like to get Susan's turn over with," snapped Aravis, jerking her head up from gazing down at the fire, " _without_ going through this!"

"Well, excuse me," Susan countered, slamming the book shut in her lap. "But not everyone gets trained in storytelling instead of a sensible skill like essay-writing."

"To be fair, Susan," Polly cut in again, "people _like_ to hear the stories; but I've never heard of anyone who wanted to read essays for fun."

"They really have this argument every year?" Edmund leaned close to Lucy's ear to whisper this question to her.

"Yes," replied Lucy. "Don't worry, they'll be cooling down in a moment or so."

"D'you know what?" Susan finally exclaimed, snatching the book out of Peter's hands who had taken it back from her to find the page she'd lost upon slamming it shut. "I forfeit my turn. Who's next?" She dumped the book unceremoniously into the next reader's lap.

"And there you go," whispered Lucy in Edmund's ear.

It took a while, but eventually Edmund grew used to strange noises and flashes coming from the book during each person's readings, even leaning forward to get a better look or to better incline his ear rather than inching further back on the stone bench, trying to sit as far away from it as possible.

Magic, the real thing, not the star-charmed sort, frightened him out of his wits; Jadis had too much of it on her own merits, and it didn't help that each and every half-blood star girl he'd lured away from her home and into the witch's clutches had only added to it. Yet, when he saw that this was not like anything Jadis had ever done, that maybe it was something that she couldn't do, something only a heart not enslaved to witchcraft could accomplish, he relaxed.

By the time it was Lucy's turn, Edmund was so mellow that he allowed himself to lean over her shoulder to peer closely in the firelight at the pictures as they formed onto the page, sometimes in a grainy, flickering fashion, other times like silver ripples spreading out into other colours and shapes gradually.

Lucy's story was probably the tamest one that had been read that night; the others quite spooky and filled with enough blood and gore to make one wince at the very least, taken aback, however good the majority of the outcomes tended to be, no matter how many villains got their comeuppance.

It seemed that at these bonfires, no one was too concerned with watering-down content for different age levels. Except, once, when a certain fairy story implied-albeit loosely-that the hero and heroine had sex, Peter broke into a coughing fit then 'accidentally' skipped that part when he resumed reading, understandably uncomfortable repeating anything even remotely dirty in front of his sisters.

Blood was one thing; he was a physician, Aslan knew he saw more than enough of it in his occupation; uncensored physical intimacy was another entirely. And for good measure, after handing the book over, he shot Perry and Alexander, who were snickering into their palms, an accusatory look for choosing that story for him on purpose just to see him squirm.

(Lucy and Eustace were the only ones present who never did figure out what that had been all about.)

Anyway, Lucy's story was a tale of two sisters called _Snow White and Rose Red_ who unwittingly stumbled upon a prince under a spell and the cruel exploits of an evil, treasure-stealing dwarf.

The pictures for this particular story were quite interesting, because-to Edmund at least-the sisters looked not unlike Lucy and Susan. He was rather of the opinion, in fact, that if Snow White had been a very little bit more attractive and had dark hair instead of the fair, wispy kind, she would have looked exactly like Susan. Did the book have a mind of its own that enabled it to cast its characters with such resemblance to real persons?

Edmund was next, after Lucy was done, and he took the book in his hands excitedly, looking forward to what it would show him as he read. It lay heavier in his hands than he had expected, but his grip on the shimmering volume remained a fairly gentle one.

Only then he saw the story Lucy had, in complete innocence and ignorance, chosen for him, and his heart stopped.

It wasn't just the story itself that hit too close to home for him in a way no one could have foreseen. The pictures, which he guessed no one else could see, judging by the waiting expression on Lucy's face as she now peered over his shoulder as he had over hers a few moments ago, made him shudder inwardly, filling him with a sadness he had done his best growing up to shove as far away from his conscious thoughts as humanly possible.

Eustace knew, because he was there-for the end of it, anyway. Ammi knew because he told her one day when she, only a little girl at the time, asked the same question Lucy had about the whereabouts of his mother, then recoiled and became moody if ever she brought it up-or provoked _him_ into bringing it up-in a conversation after that. Tumnus knew, because Eustace had explained it to him, as best he could, even if he did get some parts wrong; and Edmund only _pretended_ he didn't know about his cousin telling the faun about how his life really began. Jadis knew, though she never said so; she knew _everything_ about her Traitors.

But aside from that lot, it was Edmund's secret, and he never told anyone except for Ammi. It wasn't the business of any of the star girls to know, so he had no reason to tell them. And although there was one person he had once very badly wanted to talk about it with, for reasons he pondered brokenly sometimes on particularly sleepless nights, he had never been able to bring himself to.

If Jadis had somehow manipulated matters (was it possible that this magic fairy-tale book, while not _in_ her power, per-say, was not wholly out of reach of it?) to make this happen, Edmund did _not_ find it amusing.

Frowning, he slammed the book shut with a great _thump_ , dropped it barely a full inch away from the blazing fire-pit, and fled.

"What's with him?" asked Perry, blinking in confusion.

"Some people just don't know how oddly they come off to others," sighed Alexander, leaning in a surprisingly affectionate manner on his twin's shoulder.

Lucy stood up. "I'm going to make sure he's all right."

"Take a lantern with you so you don't trip over a root and decapitate yourself," Susan ordered, lighting a swinging oil lantern for her sister.

Peter's face went white. "Thank you, Susan, for putting it so vividly, clearly we all needed that disturbing mental image embedded in our minds." He had been fine with Lucy going to look for Edmund up till his twin sister said that.

"Oh, Peter, calm down," Susan said patronizingly, rolling her eyes. "Ten to one he's just off at another fire-pit grousing and she won't even have to wander into the dark at all. It's only a small precaution."

Peter stared at Lucy for almost a full minute before saying, "Well, take my sword with you, too, just in case."

"Peter!" Susan scolded. "Don't be absurd. _Take_ your sword? Lucy will hardly be able to _lift_ your sword!"

"Has anyone got a dwarf's sword on them?" was Peter's next idea.

Lucy shifted impatiently from her left foot to her right; this was taking too long. Peter was being over-protective as usual; but, honestly, a sword? That was a bit extreme. No one in the Lantern Waste would lay a hand on her-she was friends with most of the villagers. And if it was supposed to keep her from having an accident, she was quite fuzzy on how a sword was going to keep her from tripping over the ground or her own two feet. For a moment she almost wished she'd accepted Edmund's offer of a dagger, so that she could have used that as an excuse to be off already. Only, deep down, despite her current annoyance, she was glad she hadn't, thinking that the poor boy needed _something_ of Aslan, since he evidently had so very little of the great Lion in his life.

"Don't look at _me_ ," said Eustace in reply to Peter's question. "I'm a pacifist. I don't own weapons. Cousin's the one who does all that sort of thing."

"Perry?" He looked over at the larger gray-eyed twin hopefully.

Perry snorted, as if insulted that anyone would think that an obviously tall, well-grown chap like himself would carry a sword intended for a three or four foot _dwarf_. "No."

"Yes," Alexander chimed in. Because of his slight size, although he _could_ lift a large sword (better than Lucy would have been able to, anyway), he often found it easier to use a smaller weapon.

"Let me borrow it," Peter ordered.

"I think the word you're looking for, Master Peter, is 'please'." Alexander held the dwarf-sized sword by the middle of its scabbard, hilt-first, just out of his reach.

"Please," said Peter, through his teeth.

"Here." Alexander let him have it.

"Thank you." It was all he could do not to out-right snatch it out of the slighter twin's cocky little hands, but he managed to take it graciously and pass it down to Lucy.

As soon as she had, albeit sloppily, fastened the sword to her belt, Lucy grabbed Susan's lantern and headed out.

First, in spite of her growing certainty that he wouldn't be there, Lucy checked most of the other fire-pits, including the one Tumnus was at with Clara. Gael waved at her, but said she hadn't seen Edmund come that way at all. So Lucy then went into the darker parts of the pasture, wandering until the lantern's light fell on the back of a familiar tunic.

"Edmund?"

He shifted and, peering over his shoulder, squinted at her standing there in a puddle of dim light. "What?"

"Are you all right?"

"No." He turned his back to her again.

"Did I do something wrong?" Her voice trembled a little, broken in its saddened uncertainty.

He turned all the way to face her, shaking his head. "No, it wasn't you."

"Why did you run off?"

"It's what I do," he muttered darkly, more to himself than to Lucy.

She crinkled her forehead. "What?"

"Nothing."

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?"

"Not with you I don't." Somehow, his tone, maybe because it wasn't so bitter or angry, just factual and void of any emotion, was not particularly offensive in spite of his biting words. "You wouldn't understand."

"I don't understand a lot of things," Lucy said, sort of quietly. "People talk about them to me anyway. Sometimes it's just good to get things off your chest."

"Lu?"

"Yes?"

"You know how people say all children love their parents, and all parents love their children?" Edmund looked, best as his expression could be made out in the bad lighting, hurt and furious.

"I've heard it said," she replied neutrally.

"It's a bloody lie." He picked up a twig and threw it into the wall of darkness around them.

"It can't be _completely_ untrue," said Lucy, sitting down beside him. "Some parents are better than others, but..."

"But what?" Edmund snorted disbelievingly. "They all care deep down, right? Please, spare me."

"Did something bad happen to yours?"

"I hope so," he whispered. "They deserve it."

"That's a terrible thing to say," Lucy told him flat-out, plainly shocked. "About anybody."

"No one's making you listen to what I say," he snapped at her. Tumnus and Eustace would be furious at him for acting this much like himself, this unpleasant to be with, in front of one of the half-blood star girls he was supposed to be charming, but he couldn't help it, not right now. "I didn't _ask_ you to follow me here, did I?"

"You...are cold?" She set the lantern on the ground close beside him.

"What?"

"You're shaking."

"I'm not."

Lucy reached for one of his trembling hands and interlocked her fingers through his. "I'm not blind, Edmund."

"You're not going?" He sounded mildly surprised.

"Of course not."

"I just told you off."

"So?"

"So, aren't you gong to run away and sulk somewhere like a girl?" he asked. Wasn't she angry?

"All girls aren't like that, you know." She sighed. "We're not all petty and over-sensitive."

"Oh, and you must be the big exception, huh?" Edmund said, only half-joking.

Lucy shrugged. "I don't know."

He untangled his hand from hers and moved his bottom so that he was sitting in front of her, looking her dead-on in the face, instead of at her side. "Talk to me."

"About what?"

"I don't care," he chuckled; he suddenly seemed to be in a lighter mood, but his tone still had an unnerving ring of unstable darkness to it. "Tell me something scary that happened to you during your childhood. One day when things weren't perfect for you; tell me about how you over-came whatever it was."

That took her a little aback. He thought her life was perfect? It wasn't a bad one, not by any stretch of the imagination, and Lucy knew she was blessed, but for his level, almost of thirst, to hear about something frightening that happened in it, no matter how small, she wondered exactly how messed up _his_ childhood had been.

"I...I'll try." Lucy thought for a moment. "Oh, I have one."

"I'm listening."

"One time, when I was about eight, these hunters caught a rogue wolf in their net."

"And that was upsetting because...?"

"I've been told that some star-children can see through enchantments when they're small, before they reach adolescence," Lucy felt the need to explain. "I only did so once. And from a distance. That day with the wolf. It wasn't a wolf at all, Edmund, I swear on Aslan himself...it...it was a _boy_ in that net."

All of the fire and ice went out of Edmund's demeanor and stare right then, his eyes widening considerably. "No, that's impossible."

"He was only a little older than me," Lucy went on, closing her eyes, trying to remember. "He had short dark hair, like yours. And he was struggling to get free." Opening her eyes up again, she added, "When I got close, he didn't look like a little boy anymore, he looked like a wolf then."

"The hunters..." Edmund asked, "...they...did they have spears?"

"Dozens," said Lucy.

"I see, go on."

"When I begged the hunters not to kill him, they laughed at me. One of them raised their spear, even."

"Git," muttered Edmund.

"He wasn't a bad sort," Lucy defended the hunter, who was one of the villagers still. "His temper was sour sometimes, but he wasn't all bad. _Isn't_ all bad." Then, "So I stood in front of the wolf and said I wasn't moving until they released him.

"I think they sort of had the idea that, if they appeased me, I'll run off to play and then they could kill him once I was gone. See, I don't think they believed he was a _Talking_ wolf. I thought he was too scared to talk, they thought he couldn't speak at all. But I knew he had to be able to; he was a boy, really, after all. I _saw_ him. So I threw my arms around his neck the second the net was pulled off of him so they still couldn't shoot any arrows or throw their spears."

Edmund looked like he was concentrating very hard on Lucy's face, trying to think of something.

Lucy stretched out and lowered herself so that she was lying on her back, looking up at the stars, while she finished her story.

Edmund did the same, but he kept his head turned to the side, still staring at her.

"Finally, when they lowered their weapons," she finished, "I let go."

That had been pretty brave, he had to admit, to have such conviction in your own sight, never second-guessing yourself even if it meant running up to a dangerous wild animal; for anyone, that was amazing; for an eight year old, there were no words strong enough to describe it.

But more amazing than that... Edmund finally blinked. "I remember you now!" he exclaimed softly, almost inaudibly.

That memory wasn't only Lucy's; it was _his_ , too. He had been the wolf, by means of the green ring. Before this, he had only vaguely remembered the face of the girl who saved his life that day, during one of his rare visits to the Narnian Western Woods, but now he realized that it had been Lucy, the same girl he was supposed to betray now.

Thanks for saving _her_ for last, Jadis, he thought bitterly, thanks a whole, whole bloody lot.

"What?" Lucy hadn't heard what he said.

"Nothing," he sighed.

"There are so many stars out tonight," she commented, after a pause.

"Any of them relatives?" Edmund asked, curiously.

"Mmm," Lucy agreed absently, "a few."

"Which ones?"

"I think," she hummed pensively, pointing up at the sky, "that's Alambil, the lady of peace. She's my great, great, great...I don't know how many greats...grandmother."

"I knew a little girl once," Edmund said, "who was royal, only she didn't know quite how, or of what linage she was of. She used to like to pretend that she was a star and that Alambil (I think it was the only star name she could remember) was her grandmother. But, then, one day something happened and she stopped. Said she was scared to have star-blood. She doesn't, anyway, so I don't see how it makes much difference."

"Did _you_ pretend things growing up?" Lucy wanted to know.

"Me? No, never." He inhaled deeply, then let it out.

Really, Edmund never saw the point of all that rot. He knew all too well that imaginary food doesn't fill a stomach, a fake crown doesn't get you out of having to break the ice off of the top of your wash-basin with a sledge hammer every morning, and a made-up story doesn't help when there's a baby crying it's lungs out in the other room because its mother's too depressed to go and pick it up.

"Did you ever want to be anything, when you were growing up?"

"Honestly? I wanted to be a knight."

"Why didn't you ever do anything about it?"

Edmund didn't answer for a long while, just lying there with his eyes half-closed, so lost in his own thoughts that if it weren't for the sound of Lucy's breathing and the visual aid of puffs of her cold breath on the air, he might have forgotten she was there at all. Finally, he said, "I was otherwise engaged."


	9. Tea with Tumnus

Lucy knocked on the door to the room her father had loaned Mr. Tumnus the use of for the duration of his stay. At first, she thought perhaps the faun hadn't heard her, and was preparing to knock again, when there came the sound of the latch clicking open.

"Hullo," she said cheerfully when the door finally swung open. "Father noticed you unpacking a number of books from your satchel and he thought you might need this to help keep the shelves in order." Lucy held up a small feather-duster, the handle of which was engraved with a pattern of little olive-tree leaves.

"Oh, how kind," said Tumnus, opening the door a little wider and gratefully taking the feather-duster from her. "Thank you." It was all he could do to keep himself from blurting out, "Now go," and breaking his ingrained politeness.

The problem wasn't that he disliked Lucy; indeed, if it were, it would have been far less of a problem. He preferred not to associate too closely with the girls he and the other Traitors lured away from their homes; and, thus far, he'd done a pretty good job of it. Standing on the fringes of each of their little adventures, only chiming in to give Edmund advice and help when needed, usually served him well. There was no need to get attached. Being standoffish was the best defense the faun had managed to find in all his years in the witch's employment. Yet, this was the very first time one of them had personally sought out his company, and he wasn't sure what to do.

Worse, Lucy didn't seem in any hurry to leave, and he couldn't really tell her to buzz off. Not only would it be highly discourteous, but it _was_ her house, after all, not his.

"You've got a nice lot of books," Lucy commented cheerfully as she entered the room and looked round at what Tumnus had done with the place, noticing a gold-and-leather volume titled, _Is Man a Myth?_

Tumnus couldn't help smiling, for he was very fond of that volume; it had belonged to his grandmother and was long out of print. Because of it's obvious value, Edmund and Eustace had, on the odd desperate occasion, tried to bully him into selling it so that they could by food, clothing, passage to this or that location, basically anything they were currently in need of. He always refused, no matter how exasperated they became with him.

For the faun had but five material treasures in this world, and not for love, hunger, nor the blood of life itself would he part with them in his lifetime.

There was his red woolen muffler, knitted by his own mother back when she was alive, his satin-and-velvet scarf with the golden tassels which was supposed to be for special occasions, bought for him by a childhood sweetheart who had long since passed away, his grandmother's book, known pride of his entire literary collection, his pipe-like instrument, and a framed, gilded portrait of his father.

It was this very portrait that caught Lucy's attention next. "Oh." She admired it, running her fingers along the edge, then, after a pause, picking it up and holding it to her face to take a better look at it.

"Ah," said Tumnus, pointing at the portrait in the demistar's hands. "Now that, that is my father."

Lucy smiled gently; she could see the resemblance. "He has a nice face," she said. "He looks a lot like you."

Tumnus felt as if his heart had a dagger being stabbed into it and then twisted. "No," he said weakly, wrapping his knuckles around one of the four, almost ceiling-high, bedposts. "I'm not very much like him at all, really." What _would_ his father say if he were alive and was aware of what his son was doing right now?

"So, he wasn't into publishing?" She set the portrait back down.

"Publishing?" Tumnus glanced up at her, lifting up his lowered head, confused.

"I mean, he wasn't a publisher like you and Edmund and Eustace are?"

Oh, right. They were in the business of publishing and hunting; good of her to remind him, otherwise he might have forgotten at a much more critical time. "Oh, no. He was a solider. But he liked books just fine, I guess."

Lucy wanted to ask Tumnus more about his father, but she could see the pain written all over his face and decided that perhaps now was not the best time to ask for stories of the faun's childhood and family. So, instead, she looked at some of his other books: _The Life and Letters of Silenus_ , _Nymphs and their ways_ , and _Men, Monks & Gamekeepers_.

She noticed a fairly new edition of one of her personal favorites from her father's own library. " _A Study in Popular Legend_!" she exclaimed excitedly, sliding it off the shelf.

Tumnus sighed. "You can look at it," he said, not unkindly, "but that is strictly a reference book. It's my second-favorite."

"Oh, Father's got one like it downstairs," Lucy explained. "I think his is a first edition, though."

"How interesting," said the faun with complete sincerity. "I saw a first edition in a bookshop window once." Reddening slightly, he whispered, "Between me and you, when I was sure no one was looking, I pressed my nose against the glass."

Lucy giggled. "Why didn't you buy it?"

"Eustace and Edmund wanted to eat and sleep indoors instead." He shrugged his bare shoulders. "I can't say I blame them."

"Where is Edmund today anyway?" she wanted to know. "I've barely seen him at all since the bonfire, and we've been in the same house!"

"I think I can say," said the faun, going over to a tea-tray on the dresser and putting some sugar into a tea-cup, "with absolute certainty, you will be seeing plenty of him over the next few days."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, he isn't avoiding you, sweetheart." He poured some tea for himself, then added, "Care for any yourself?"

"Oh, yes, please." Lucy nodded.

He turned another cup right-side up and poured some tea into it as well. "Milk or sugar?"

"Both, please." She took a seat in a cozy chair by the unlit fire.

"Would you prefer a fire?" he asked uncertainly, wondering if she was cold. He had no idea how to entertain a young lady except in theory.

"Oh no, I'm fine, thank you." Lucy took the cup of tea he held out to her, careful not to spill it.

"So, as I was saying," Tumnus pressed on, "Edmund has been preoccupied with business the last couple of days. But the deal should be going through this afternoon, and that's where he is right now." With any luck, Edmund was switching those Charnian coins for their Narnian counterparts in a dark alley at that very moment; the faun only hoped the boy wasn't picking up more Toffee-Leaves while he was at it.

"I've seen Eustace moping about, he looks very bored and cross," Lucy commented, crinkling her brow. "Shouldn't he be dealing with business matters, too?"

"We thought this particular meeting was better suited to Edmund alone," said Tumnus quickly.

"The three of you must make a lot of friends," Lucy thought aloud, "traveling from place to place for your occupation."

The faun shook his head. "Precious few, actually."

"That's a pity," she said, apologetically. "But there's always room for you here whenever you're in the Lantern Waste."

There was no way they would ever be coming back to this mansion after their final mission for Jadis was over, Tumnus thought brokenly. And there wouldn't be any Lucy Ramandu to welcome them anyhow, even if they _could_ come. The last betrayed demistar would be long gone by then, and they would be free with any luck. Free, at least, from the White Witch, though not from the nightmares and guilt for what they'd done.

"Mr. Tumnus, what's the matter?" She saw a tear run down his face.

"Oh...I..." He glanced over at the portrait of his father. "I was just thinking of my father."

"Don't worry, you'll see him again," Lucy said softly.

"I doubt it," said Mr. Tumnus; he was a little more aware of Narnian beliefs than Edmund was, but he didn't allow himself to believe it in his own mind, too afraid of the implications. Aslan's Country...what hope had he of ever getting there? A bad faun like him? No, not him, he'd never be there, nor should his father, on the day all the good Narnians arrived, wait for him with rush lights, for it would be in vain.

" _I_ don't," was her only gentle rebuttal.

That, and the kind expression on her face, the wide blue eyes trying to reassure him, as if he were an old friend, broke his heart. More tears escaped from his eyes; he held them till they made him temporarily blind.

What were they doing? What in the Lion's name were they doing? Taking girls from their homes...they should all have been hung, put out of their misery long ago.

Edmund, Eustace, and Ammi were actually the _second_ group of traitors that Tumnus had worked with, mentored, and assisted. Of the first, consisting originally of four humans-two boys and their female cousins-only one man had survived long enough to be freed by the witch.

That man had become so bitterly evil as a result of the trauma from being a Traitor that even Tumnus, who had been with the fellow since he was quite young, working with him tirelessly, trying to keep him moving forward, thinking about the future, grew to fear and hate him. He was appalled, even terrified, at the thought of what such a man might do once set free on the world.

And he wasn't there to try and set him back to his right mind when that occurred, because the witch had said his service to her wasn't complete; she turned him to stone, only reviving him years later when she had three new traitors for him to mentor.

Eustace and Ammi's faces had been completely fresh to Tumnus, save for a kind of regal hardness on Ammi's that gave him a touch of deja vu. It was Edmund's that set him back in years and made him feel that a funny kind of atonement was in order. Edmund resembled the man who the witch had freed so closely that if it hadn't been for a faint flicker of a different sort of character in his face, Tumnus would have thought he'd gone back in time or else was dreaming.

And for years he had been convincing himself that Edmund would turn out different. Not only was there a chance that, this time, all of the traitors would survive to be released, but the faun thrived on the hope that Edmund wouldn't become a monster.

Of course, you couldn't be _good_ and be a traitor, but simply aiming for 'not evil' didn't seem so impossible.

There were traits in Edmund that Tumnus had not seen in the first man; he was stronger, and however much the lad wanted to roll his eyes about it and tell them to shut up, what he'd done for Ammi was nothing short of heroic.

Not very many _honest_ people, never-mind con-artists and betrayers, would have taken the flogging Edmund took on her behalf.

But, paradoxically, that only made it worse. Jadis had Ammi with her now for a reason. Edmund could say he didn't care about her, but his actions hadn't repeated that sentiment in the least. If there was even the slightest chance he _did_ fancy Ammi, and the witch caused her harm in some way, that might just push the poor kid over the edge.

"I can't let that happen again," murmured Tumnus, unintentionally whispering aloud.

"Let _what_ happen again?" Lucy asked, blinking at him.

"Forgive me, Lucy, I was thinking of something else. My mind is all over the place today."

"It's all right," Lucy told him, reaching across to his chair and putting her hand over his. "I sometimes get lost when I think about Mum."

She thinks I'm still pondering over my father, Tumnus realized. And in a way, he kind of was; he _did_ keep thinking that his father would have never become a traitor- _never_!

As soon as she released the faun's hands, they started shaking. Then they lost their grip on his tea-cup, and it tumbled to the floor, the handle breaking off.

Tumnus buried his face in his hands and started to sob.

"Please don't cry again," Lucy begged, standing up all the way now, coming over and putting a hand on his shivering bare shoulder. "It will be all right, you'll see."

"No," he whispered, "it's no use, saying nice things to me. You won't understand. I'm not crying because I miss my father, Lucy. I'm crying because I'm such a terrible faun."

"Oh no!" exclaimed Lucy, out-right putting her arms around him now. "You aren't. You aren't at all! Aside from Clara, you're the nicest faun I've ever met."

He smiled weakly through his tears. "If I hadn't already formed such a high opinion of your Clara, then I think I would say that you must have had a _very_ poor sampling."

"There! You're smiling again," said Lucy; perhaps too soon, for the tears came back in earnest the second the words dropped from her lips.

"Why are you so kind?" wept Tumnus. Why couldn't she be rotten and spoiled, someone who was only getting what was coming to them? Even if she'd only been just a little _stupid_ , maybe...maybe it would be easier...

"Are you honestly crying because I'm being _kind_?" Lucy almost laughed at that. "Mr. Tumnus, you should be ashamed, a great big faun like you, crying over nothing."

"I'm crying over only what is my own fault, Lucy Ramandu," he wailed, a little too freely.

"You can't have done anything that bad."

"It's not something I _have_ done, Lucy." He swallowed hard. "It's something I am doing."

"What are you doing?" she whispered.

He shook his head, regaining himself and closing up again. "I would not have you worry about it. I will be all right, as you said. I just need some time alone, if you wouldn't mind going out the way you came in." Tumnus fought against a sniffle. "Forgive me for giving you the rush out of a room in your own home."

"You're sure you're not ill? I could call Peter up here to make sure you haven't taken sick." Lucy thought she had read somewhere that people cried madly before bad fevers struck them.

"No, no, it' s only my heart that's sick, nothing else. Please go." Tumnus couldn't bear even to _look_ at her again.

As soon as she was gone and absolutely beyond shadow of a doubt out of ear-shot, the faun whispered, "I'm giving you to the White Witch. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Looking down at the ashes in the hearth, Tumnus added, crying in a low, tormented voice, "How can I do it _now_? How can I help him hurt _her_? How can I give Lucy up to Jadis now that I know what she's like?"

And how did Edmund harden his heart against one girl after another, if just the one could be this loveable? Maybe, and this broke the faun's heart all over again, there was no hope for him after all; if he could do this without batting an eye, he must already be too far gone.

Tumnus felt the last of his hopes, not to mention the most dear to him for being held onto for so long, flickering inside of him like an ember that is about to burn out.

Meanwhile, Edmund was indeed coming out of a dark alley with his fist closed around a palm-sized bag of the style little boys like to carry playing marbles in, full to the string-drawn brim of Narnian gold coins.

He had also, as Tumnus feared he might, gotten himself a refill of Toffee-Leaves, carefully hidden on his person. It wouldn't help him betray Lucy P. Ramandu if he got busted for carrying around illegal substances. And Jadis would be furious. The witch didn't care what her traitors did with their free time, for once they were off their mission and no longer currently needed to serve her evil purposes, they ceased to interest her; that is, unless they messed up and did something that would effect her ability to use them freely at her disposal at any point in the future.

Edmund had gotten a week in her dungeon, shackled to an icy rack (and one day of that week, when she was particularly angry, got thrown against the wall so hard his arm almost broke upon impact) as punishment for the time he had gotten himself apprehended over night because of his addiction to Toffee-Leaves; and that had been considered a _minor_ offense to Jadis, Queen of Charn, graced with _minimal_ punishment. The last thing he wanted to do now was push his luck, especially when they were so close to freedom.

Looking up and blinking in the sunlight, he saw Lucy coming towards him on her horse Snowflake. (After her talk and tea with Mr. Tumnus, she had decided to go for a ride into the village, confused over how the faun had been acting perfectly lucid one moment then seemed to have altogether lost it the next.)

On the one hand, he was slightly annoyed, because he'd been planning on buying that cloak for her as a surprise and couldn't do so if she was with him, but on the other, he was glad to see her.

Frankly, deep down, he felt a little _too_ glad for his own liking, knowing that pretending you like someone and starting to like them for real, on their own merits, were two very different things. And if it was at all possible, he wanted the former over the latter.

"Edmund!" She pulled back on the reins. "Whoa, Snowflake!" The horse stopped and let out a little whinny.

"What are you doing here?" Edmund asked, his tone not unfriendly.

"Out for a ride," Lucy explained. "I wasn't really expecting to run into you; Tumnus said you were off on business."

"Well, as it happens," said Edmund, tossing his coin bag in the air and catching it pointedly, "I've finished up early."

"Wonderful." Lucy slipped down from the saddle. "I'm going to walk with you, then."

"Oh, all right." He shrugged his shoulders as if it was all one and the same to him.

"So I take it," she said, carefully leading Snowflake around a dwarf carrying a tray of hazelnuts so that her horse didn't trample him by accident, "you aren't going back to the inn now that you can afford to stay where-ever you like?" Tumnus had made it seem as though they were staying on, but she wanted to be sure.

"Not unless you want me to," said Edmund, smirking.

Lucy breathed a little sigh of relief; she had hoped as much. "Because, the mansion always seems a little empty when guests leave. And...and Eustace, I think he has grown very fond of my father's library in spite of his best attempts to snub it."

"No worries, Lu," Edmund laughed, a little cheekily. "Goodness forbid I should separate my cousin from your father's library. Seems they were made for each other."

Without really knowing why, Lucy blushed. Maybe it was something in Edmund's tone, or maybe she was just flushed from being so pleased he was staying. "Besides, it will be useful for you too, being so close to Polly and Aravis."

"Why?" He arched a brow.

"Because it will be easier to get help with your Griffin Rider training if they're on hand, of course." Lucy reached back and patted her horse's neck. "You're awfully lucky they came to stay with us the night before you did."

"Lucky," Edmund echoed in frustrated fashion, as though he felt anything but.

"Oh, how disgusting!" cried Lucy suddenly, making Snowflake stop and ceasing to walk any further herself, staring at something with a look of sheer hatred.

"What's up, Lu?" He squinted to see what this was all about.

"Over there." She pointed at a man dressed in Calormene armour and a preposterous-looking feathered turban, leading a Calormene lady in chains towards a tavern with a broken window. "Do you see him, Ed?"

"Yes, who is that?"

"I don't know his name," Lucy said bitterly, "but he's vile. Do you know he's a slaver?"

"Slaver?" Edmund thought for a moment. "But I thought slavery was forbidden in Narnia and Archenland, as well as most of the Lone Islands."

"It _is_." She nodded firmly. "But he's not Narnian, he's from Calormen. And as long as he never drags a born Narnian or Archenlander through our village tied up, no one can stop him. He isn't allowed to _sell_ his slaves here, only he always brings them through, sometimes having as many as six or seven, just to rub in it our faces that he's doing whatever he wants, in spite of our efforts to get him off the streets."

"Looks like he's only got the one now," Edmund commented.

Lucy still looked like she was seething with rage. "How dare he keep doing this! That poor girl, she looks as if she's about to start bawling."

"Dash it!" Edmund peered over at the lady and nearly fell backwards from shock, having to steady himself on Snowflake's flanks. "I _know_ that woman!"

"How?"

"Remember when I told you that a...um... _dancer_ hid me from Rabadash's men?"

Lucy nodded.

"Well, that's her." Edmund winced.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure!" he exclaimed, feeling like he was going to be sick.

"What are you going to do?" She noticed a look of intense determination forming on Edmund's face.

"Wait here," he ordered, going over to the woman, who now had her chains fastened to a wooden pole while the slaver was inside getting a drink of ale.

"Edmund!" Lucy called after him, wishing he hadn't left her behind. If he was going to do what no one else in the village could and defy the Calormene slaver, she wanted to help!

"Psst!"

The woman looked around for the source of the urgent whisper.

"Over here." Edmund waved at her.

She let out a gasp and started babbling excitedly in Calormene.

"Remember me?"

"Biyda!" exclaimed the woman (it was a Calormene word meaning 'brother', and she'd used it as a sort of endearing nickname for Edmund during his time with her in Calormen), tears streaming down her face.

"Listen to me," he said quickly. "Stop blubbing and do exactly as I tell you, all right?"

She nodded vigorously and tried to make herself stop weeping.

"See that broken window-pane?" His eyes flickered over to the tavern window.

She nodded again.

"You're close enough to reach that. What I want to you to do is scrape your arm across it and make yourself bleed as badly as you can. The more gory the wound, the better." He glanced nervously over his shoulder, hoping the slaver wouldn't notice them talking. "Then faint on my signal."

The woman opened her mouth to protest.

"Trust me," Edmund mouthed.

She bit her lip and made a dash as best as she could for the window, doing exactly as Edmund had told her to. When she was finished, she lifted up the heavy, bloody arm to show him.

"Hey!" He flung the door to the tavern open. "Which one of you is responsible for that girl outside?"

"I am," said the oily voice of the slaver as he stood up. "Interested?"

"She's hurt," Edmund said through gritted teeth. "I demand you go out there and release her at once."

"She's only shaming."

"No, I think the blood streaming out of her arm is real," Edmund snapped sarcastically. "Now release her so I can take her to the physician, or I swear you will have both a corpse on your hands and a price on your head."

Grunting, the man followed him outside and unchained the bleeding woman.

"Now!" Edmund hissed in her ear.

No muss, no fuss, not even so much as pretend-gasp of horror, she tumbled unceremoniously to the ground.

Carefully, Edmund lifted her up and started bringing her over to where Lucy still stood with Snowflake. "I need to borrow your horse, Lu."

"Wait," snapped the slaver, following close behind. "Take me with you so I can get her back once she's been bandaged up and had a bucket of water dumped over her face."

"Oh, well, I know the physician personally," he said, looking-Lucy thought-quite sly. "But I swear on my mother's grave, I'll bring her right back here."

As soon as Edmund had gotten the woman onto the horse and climbed up behind her, Lucy jumping up behind the both of them, the slaver growled, "Just make sure it's before noon tomorrow, I've got to be in Ettinsmoor in three days."

"Not bloody likely," Edmund sneered down at him. "She's never going to be near the likes of you again."

"By Tash! And you swore on your mother's grave!"

Edmund smiled real slow. "I don't even know if my mother's dead yet." With that, he gave the horse a kick to get it moving, and they disappeared down the road and up the hill before the slaver could work out just how thoroughly he had been duped.


	10. Another Nightmare

Peter was just taking a very late tea in one of the mansion's many studies, eating only a few leftover biscuits, downing several cups of plain tea without sugar or cream, when one of Susan's thoughts from downstairs in one of the back entryways alerted him to the fact that Edmund had unexpectedly brought an injured person into their home and was in need of immediate assistance.

This didn't unsettle him too much; after all, no physician truly can rely on having nothing to do on what is-in theory-one of his days off; people fall ill and hurt themselves too frequently for that. Besides, he'd had a fairly quiet week, and while it had been relaxing, in a sense, it was also making him revert into a beginning stage of depression. So it was almost a relief to get his mind working usefully again on an urgent cause.

What Susan's thought hadn't informed the young physician of (simply because she found it too unimportant a detail to register, being very practical and not of the male gender, unlike her more fanciful twin) was that the injured person in question was actually a rather attractive young woman, only perhaps a year or so their senior. Peter had to discover this for himself, descending on the staircase and catching sight of the woman with the bloody arm propped up on a long narrow couch near the coat-hooks.

She was obviously of Calormene ethnicity, though noticeably a great deal less dark-skinned than the average person from Calormen was, almost to the point where one might wonder if one of her parents wasn't a northerner, from Archenland or Narnia. Her hair was long, black, and shinny with sweat. She had a pretty face and figure, but was rather too thin (Edmund, in fact, was wondering if the blasted slaver had even been feeding her at all, considering she'd been at least five or six pounds heavier the last time he saw her). Peter, while he wouldn't dream of remarking on it aloud, also thought the poor lass could use fattening up a bit.

"Oh, Peter!" cried Lucy, running to her brother with her hands held out. "Thanks be to Aslan today was your day off! The clinic was in the other direction, and if you hadn't been here, that horrid slaver might have been able to try and stop us from getting to you."

"Slaver?" Peter looked at Susan.

Silently, she filled him in; Edmund had rescued a slave from the Calormene slaver and Lucy had helped somewhat, being on hand with Snowflake at the right time so they could make their getaway.

Lucy, knowing her brother and sister well enough to be aware of the best time to cut into their wordless conversation, piped up. "Actually, it was Edmund's cunning that got her away. He swore on his mother's grave, only she mightn't really be dead, so that's all right." She almost began to laugh and had to press her hand to her mouth. "Oh, the look on his face, Peter! I wish you could have seen it."

"But why is she bleeding?" Peter inquired.

"Well," said Edmund, scratching nervously at the back of his head, "it was the only way. I didn't think he'd release her without motive."

"Does she speak Narnian?" He gave the Calormene lady a kind glance, to which she replied only by lowering her eyes and dropping his gaze.

" _Speak_ it?" Edmund shook his head and twisted his mouth pensively. "No, not really. _Understand_ it? Certainly."

"She knew Edmund from before," Lucy added unwittingly. "She's a dancer."

"I hadn't known that Calormene dancers wore such ill-fitting garments," Susan commented dryly. Even with the woman's small size, the thin billowy clothing draped over her body, very similar to what Aravis might use as summertime curtains in a window but never as part of a dress or tunic, looked too clingy in all the wrong places.

The woman looked mildly embarrassed, but it was _Edmund's_ face that reddened and turned away from everyone until it cooled back down again. Lucy might not have understood Susan's implications, but Peter undoubtedly did, and that could easily spell trouble for Edmund in the near future.

Peter, however, was very kind to the lady, acting as if he hadn't heard (and sensed) his sister's words as he bent down to her level. "Now, then, you've had a nasty scrape, but it's all right now. I'm going to give you something to avoid infection, then we'll have that wound bandaged up before you can say Jack Robinson."

She looked up at him shyly and said something long-winded in Calormene, gesturing emphatically with her one good arm.

Peter blinked uncomprehendingly, only understanding maybe one out of every four words at best.

"She says thanks," Edmund translated, rolling his eyes.

He raised an eyebrow, amused. It took _how_ many words for her to say that?

"Oh, and that you look awful young to be a physician," he added offhandedly.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Peter laughed, shaking his head. "The other day, a little girl, around five years old, came into the clinic, asked my age, and then exclaimed, 'you're so old!' in a very loud voice. Made me feel very self-conscious."

" _Everybody's_ hopelessly old to a child of five," said the lady, in Calormene.

Edmund translated again.

Peter nodded, left the room, returned with the supplies he needed to disinfect and bandage the lady's arm as well as something wrapped up in a cloth napkin, then said, "You have a name, I presume?"

"Raynbi."

"Aslan bless you," said Lucy, smiling kindly.

"No, Lu," Edmund laughed, almost shaking with amusement at that; "she didn't _sneeze_. That's her _name_. Raynbi."

Lucy blushed and fidgeted with her fingers. "Oh, sorry."

"How do you spell that?" Susan wondered aloud.

Edmund wrinkled his nose at her. "It's as it sounds." What did it matter how the woman's name was spelled?

"Raynbi. So that would be, R-A-B-E-A?"

"No." But if she was going to make such a point of it, he might as well correct her. "There's a silent N in there. And you're sort of pronouncing it wrong; it's not Ray- _bee_ , it's like Rye-bye."

"Like the bread and saying goodbye?" Lucy guessed.

Edmund nodded. "You got it."

"Well," said Susan, a bit huffily, folding her arms across her chest. "It's _not_ spelled how it sounds, then."

"Look, as deep and meaningful as this conversation evidently is," snapped Peter, twisting his head round to glare at them, especially his twin sister who he took for the instigator of the whole petty argument, "Raynbi, however by the Lion's mane she pronounces her name and sneezes, has lost quite a bit of blood here. So if you could all just be quiet and let me bandage her up without distraction, that would be greatly appreciated."

Lucy choked back a giggle.

Once Raynbi's arm was bandaged, Peter peeled back the cloth napkin and took out some herbs, placing them in her palm. "Here, chew on these. They'll help build up your blood-count. Very good for you." Then he took out two rolls of very rich bread, fresh from the kitchen, still on the warm side. "And eat this while you're at it. When did you last have a proper meal?"

"Calormen." She took the roll from his hands and shifted, turning her back to him while she ate it gingerly, like a hunched-over squirrel at work on a nut.

It was at this point that Eustace and Tumnus decided to put in an appearance, coming down the stairs and noticing the scantily-clad girl eating rolls like she was afraid someone would take them from her if she wasn't speedy and cautious.

"Who is that indecent person?" Eustace demanded tactlessly.

Edmund frowned. "Mind your own business, Useless."

"How stupid I've been!" Lucy realized, getting only one idea out of that exchange between the cousins. "I should have gotten her something else to put on. She must be freezing!" She started for the staircase, lightly nudging Tumnus out of the way. "Excuse me. I'll be right back."

"Susan," Peter said in a very serious tone, "could you go into the other room? Now that Lucy's gone for a moment, there's something I want to speak with Edmund about."

"I'll hear you anyway," she said with a shrug. "I don't feel like leaving. Just come out and say it; I already know what it is anyway."

Peter squirmed uncomfortably. "All right, since I guess this is as private as it's going to get...Edmund, where exactly did you meet this woman before today?"

"Just, you know, around, in Calormen," he said evasively.

Before Peter could press for more information, or at the very least turn and beg the lady's pardon for discussing his suspicions right in front of her as if she weren't there (just because Raynbi might be disreputable was no reason not to treat her with courtesy, after all), Lucy reappeared on the stairs carrying an old but well-maintained silken frock of Susan's in her arms. Gael was at her side, peering over the railing curiously at their unexpected guest.

There was nothing else to do but to give Edmund a hard look, reminding him that he couldn't be passive and secretive for ever if he intended to remain in their house, and wait for a more convenient time to resume the conversation.

"This should be much warmer for you," Lucy said to Raynbi, who looked as if she might burst into tears. "You can throw it on over your clothes now." Honest-and occasionally blunt-as the youngest demistar was, Lucy still knew better than to out-right say the woman looked as though she were wearing little more than undergarments or else a thin nighty.

Raynbi patted Lucy's cheek with her good hand and accepted the dress gratefully.

"Gael and I can show you to your room, if you would like. You must be tired from bleeding so much."

"My room?" Raynbi repeated slowly, managing to speak in Narnian but with a Calormene accent so strong, even on just those two small words, that if they hadn't been able to guess plainly what she meant they might still have needed Edmund to translate regardless.

"You do need your rest," said Peter kindly. "The mansion has several guest rooms. You aren't going to be in anybody's way."

"Biyda?" She looked anxiously over at Edmund.

"It's all right," he said quickly, gesturing at the stairs. "Go with them."

"They are not..." she said slowly, in Calormene, "... _angry_ with me?"

"Of course not."

"But, Biyda, they...at least the good physician and the pretty, dark-haired sister of his...they must know that I am...they surely can tell, even though you've not said..."

"Yes, so?"

"They still don't mind my being here?"

"Why should they? You're just an injured guest."

"I've bled on their couch." Her eyes looked regretfully at the blood that had dripped from her arm before Peter had bandaged it. It didn't help her feelings of being ill at ease that some blood had already seeped through the bandage as well.

"It doesn't matter."

"I cannot afford to pay to replace it."

"I'll take care of it," Edmund told her, thinking of all the exchanged gold he now had at his disposal. "Don't worry. You're safe now. No one is angry with you here."

The others-save for Tumnus, who knew a little Calormene, and Eustace, who had been trying to learn it for the day he got his freedom and could move anywhere he liked-were mostly lost, understanding nothing at all of the conversation between Edmund and the 'dancer'. When they were finally finished talking, Raynbi allowed herself to be helped up by Peter and escorted by Gael up the stairs and down some hallways to a bed-room.

Lucy hung back to walk alongside Edmund for a bit, even if was only as far as his guest room (much to the annoyance of Tumnus, who was aching to get a sharp word or two in edgewise with the boy and not be over-heard); and Peter stayed with Susan, silently communicating to his sister that he hoped Raynbi's bleeding would be clotted completely by the bandage after an hour or so had passed, because if not she might need some stitches, and that he thought Edmund was hiding something and wasn't entirely sure what, though he had his darker guesses.

As soon as Tumnus found himself alone with Edmund (with the sole exception of Eustace, who had naturally followed the faun into his cousin's room and made himself right at home), he made certain the thick, heavy door was shut and latched, then promptly lit into him.

"A _prostitute_ , Edmund?" exclaimed the faun furiously, throwing his hands in the air as if at his wit's end. "Seriously?"

"Seems you had a much better time in Calormen than your letters lead one to believe," simpered Eustace cheekily.

"Eustace, shut up." Edmund glared at him. "Being in Charn is like living in a bloody cage, as you well know, I needed to talk to _someone_ in Calormen! I was by myself and I was going mad."

"Talk?" Tumnus arched a brow.

"Tumnus, you know me," Edmund arched a brow right back at him. "What do you honestly _think_ I was doing in Calormen with that woman?"

"As much fun as teasing Cousin Edmund for spending time with harlots is," Eustace sighed, "I don't believe he actually _did_ anything."

"She's not a harlot," Edmund defended her. "That's not what they call them."

"What do they call them?" Tumnus asked impatiently, feeling that this was all besides the point.

"Courtesans." He sat down on the edge of his bed. "And the courtesans were much nicer to me than the innkeepers, all of whom said I was a white barbarian who was going to burn in a pit full of fire for not participating in their morning Tash-worshiping rituals before breakfast."

"Edmund," said Tumnus, "I don't doubt your word, especially not after what happened with Ammi. But do you really think bringing a har-"

Edmund frowned warningly.

"Courtesan," he amended, mostly undeterred; "bringing a _courtesan_ in here, when you're supposed to be getting Coriakin's daughter to like you...gaining this family's trust...how are they going to believe in you now?"

"I couldn't leave her," he pointed out. "If it weren't for her, I'd have been hung. A life for a life, I owed her that much."

"True, but..."

"Tumnus, did you get a good look at her face?"

"No, I didn't pay much attention, why?"

"Nothing, I was just wondering..." He shook his head. "Nothing, forget I said anything. I'm probably wrong, like I always am."

"Can I just ask one more question?" the faun said, his voice a little more gentle now.

Edmund nodded resignedly.

"Why did you choose to spend your nights at a courtesan's house? No one in Calormen knew who you were and, aside from some innkeepers bent on shoving their beliefs down your throat, there was no reason..."

"I didn't feel comfortable anywhere else." Edmund laughed a little to himself, almost incredulously. "The funny thing is, when I was in that house, even though I was playing cards and eating with women who took money, and that knowledge was sickening, it was the only time I didn't feel guilty or in danger."

"Cards?" Tumnus said. "Did you at least let the ladies win?"

Edmund smirked. "Most of the time."

"Good boy." The faun patted his shoulder in a manner that said he was done scolding him. "Now we must figure out how to explain this away before it snowballs out of control and robs us of what might be our one chance for freedom."

Meanwhile, Raynbi was settling into her room. She had nothing to unpack, and she was rather timid of touching anything much, so she made herself a comfortable place in the window-seat by dragging the multi-coloured patchwork comforter off of the bed and putting it over her feet, ankles, and lower legs, the only parts of her that still felt cold.

Looking out at the view, which was of the very garden Edmund and Lucy had walked through the morning a certain traitor had seen fit to tell off the neighbours in their native tongue, Raynbi thought, in a low whisper to herself, "One could be very happy, having a home here."

She had not expected Narnia to be beautiful. How could she have? She had been taken forcibly away from the only country she had ever known, a place of heat and sand, and visitors who come and go and have the most dreadful habit of coming back when you don't want them to and never darkening your doorway again when you _do_.

It was the only life she had ever known; her mother's life as well as her own, and maybe her grandmother's as well, only her mother had taken to strong wine so much that she couldn't remember to tell Raynbi much about grandmothers, so it was only a guess on her part. Of her father, she knew even less; only that her mother had not wanted him, that he was not of Calormen, that he was frightening and domineering, and that inquiring too much about him would get her a drunken slap across the face.

The Narnian visitors she had occasionally entertained were not reputable, and had very little of importance to say. They rarely ever mentioned Aslan, and if so, only when very, very drunk. She could only assume that Aslan was either very like their Tash (a Tashlan, if you would) or else that the stories told by palace folk, of a demon lion who would kill an honest Calormene as soon as glance at them, were closer to the truth than she in her more than half-antagonistic heart believed.

To her, Narnia might well have been a freezing icy wasteland full of possessed beasts who could talk with the voices of men and gods.

Then, even upon discovering she was quite wrong, that the landscape was rather breathtaking, before now she'd had no chance to enjoy it, being traded about in shady taverns and hollow groves like she was naught but a sack of potatoes.

The last slaver, the one Biyda had rescued her from, was the worst of the lot. He was mean, had a passion for starving and hitting his stock, and his breath smelled like a sweaty camel with bad diarrhea.

How glad she had been to see Biyda again! She had missed him a great deal. One day he had just up and left, leaving no hint of where he was going, his satchel slung over his shoulder, his eyes dry though all of the ladies in her house were dampening handkerchiefs by the pound, waving her scoldings away when she told them to behave and for mercy's sake stop sniveling. The others he had merely nodded farewell at, but her-Raynbi-he had actually hugged goodbye. It was the first and only time he had allowed any of them to touch any part of him other than his feet.

Sobbing, whatever she had told the other girls about dignity long forgotten in that brotherly gesture, she'd smiled shakily at him and reminded Biyda that he would always have a place there, should he care to return.

"If I return to Calormen with a sack of gold, I'll remember your kindness," he had said jestingly.

She had shaken her head no, wishing she could make him understand that one such as he would be welcome even in the clothing of beggars without a cent to his name. But Biyda's beliefs, poor boy, were even more cynical and hard than her own; and she knew, unless he had money, he would not be coming back, whatever she said.

Often she had wondered what became of him, whether he was starving quite close by, embarrassed to come back poor, or else-which seemed more likely-he was doing all right for himself, but was too far away to visit.

How he had come to a mansion like this, with such people as these, she couldn't fathom, but she didn't particularly care. What, after all, if it were only a dream? What if the comforter on her feet wasn't real and she wasn't warm and Biyda had not saved her? What if in a moment she woke up and found herself back with that ghastly beast of a slaver? No, she would not question it; for as long as it lasted, she was going to enjoy this.

Her hair hung in her face, locks of it blocking her view when she leaned forward to wipe her foggy breath off the window-pane.

Sighing to herself, she began to weave it all into a long side-braid. The least that nasty slaver could have done was given her a hair-brush of her own, or a ribbon! Hadn't he at least had the sense to think that more people would want to buy her if they could see her face? Or maybe he _wasn't_ a stupid idiot and knew that customers wouldn't like how pinched and thin the face in question had become since he'd bought her.

There came a light knock on the door.

"Come in," she said, still working on the braid.

It was that young fair-headed physician who'd bandaged her arm, and he had a Calormene-to-Narnian dictionary tucked under his arm!

She rose up, letting go of her hair, leaving it half-done, and managed a Calormene-style curtsey, then touched his feet respectfully.

He looked at her with a puzzled expression and said, "What's all this, then?"

She shrunk back, as if frightened she had been offensive without intending to. It was very hard being in a country you didn't know the customs of. "Good day, Sir," she managed, though mostly in Calormene.

It took a minute, because he had to look up what she said before replying, but finally he said, "How is the arm?"

"It hurts a little, but it's fine." She lifted up the arm to show him.

"The patient doesn't tell the physician it's fine," he said pointedly. "It has to hurt if you expect it to heal."

She nodded. "I did not expect a check-up so soon."

"You might need stitches, I was a little nervous about telling you that. You had a shock and all, but as you're settling in now..."

"I've had worse injuries before," said Raynbi, lowering her eyes. "I'm used to pain."

"Taken a nasty tumble or two?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm not really poor on balance. I've been knocked down by men, though."

"Ah." He flipped a few pages in the dictionary, trying to get the gist of what she was saying. "I thought you and I ought to talk."

"What about?"

A few more pages were rustled. "Edmund."

"Biyda?" she laughed.

"Why do you call him that?"

She shrugged with one shoulder. "It suits him. And he would not let me call him Eddie, it made him very cross. So there you go."

Peter laughed at that, after reading the translation.

"So what do you want to know?"

"You're not strictly a dancer, are you?"

"No."

"So what are you?"

"Nobody, now."

"Sharp's the world, you're as vague as Edmund!"

"I'll take that as a compliment."

Peter pulled out a chair from a writing desk in the corner and sat down. "What were you before, then? Please don't think I'm trying to be harsh, lady, it's just important that you tell me the truth."

"For medical reasons, or because you don't trust Biyda?" One of her slender brows raised itself up as if it had a mind of its own.

"Both." Peter made his expression unmoving.

"Fine, then. I was a Courtesan." She tucked a strand of hair coming loose from it's half-braid behind one ear.

"I see," he said in the same level tone, turning a page.

"You will turn me out, no?"

"No, of course not!" He looked up from the dictionary. "I'm not in the habit of turning my patients out of doors before they're healed."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you're very odd for a noble, physician or no."

"How do you mean?"

"Well," explained Raynbi, "you come in here-more or less knowing what I was, only wanting to hear it from me directly, nothing more. You sit far away from me, and you ask me many questions."

"I have yet another one for you," Peter announced, "you and...Bi-ha, was it?"

"Biyda," she corrected him. "Accent on the 'da'."

"Ah. Well, I think I'm going to stick with plain Edmund, if you don't mind," Peter told her, flipping in a rather lost manner through the part of the dictionary that went over pronunciation.

"Very well."

"You know you _can_ sit down, Lady Raynbi." He noticed that she had been standing, even after he sat, straight as a poker, as if she hadn't even the right to slump in front of him.

"Thank you," she said gratefully, lowering herself back into the window-seat. "My knees were beginning to hurt."

"So, how did you meet Edmund?"

"In the brothel, where I lived."

He winced, and shifted uncomfortably. "I see, and exactly how often was he there?"

"Very often."

And to think this person, who had been in a brothel in Calormen 'very often' had been taking walks and being friendly with his favorite sister! The thought was beginning to repel him greatly to the point where Peter wasn't sure he even wanted to hear any more about it, but he felt oddly compelled to press on.

"We all knew him by sight," she added.

As awkward as the question was, Peter gathered his wits as best he could and said, "Were you sleeping with him?"

Both of her eyebrows went up this time. "About time, Lord Physician, about time." She lowered her good arm to her bad one and pressed her hands together in mock applause. "You just said it. And here I thought we would be dancing around the question for another hour at least." She smiled coyly. "You've surprised me all over again."

"Look," said Peter, knowing both that his face was red and that Susan was, from a parlour downstairs, sensing everything he was saying and thinking, and laughing at him behind the worn volume of Ettinsmoor-Latin she was engrossed in, "Edmund worries me. Part of me wants to trust him, but there's this...this sort of mark...in his face, that smacks of something bad, something I don't want my sister exposed to. I don't dislike him, but part of me is a little afraid of him. Not for myself, but for my sister. She's very innocent and she has a way of befriending anything that moves...I don't want to see her hurt, do you understand?"

"I understand," she assured him. "Listen to me. Biyda never laid a hand on any of us in that house. That was why most of us were so fond of him. He paid for us all, so that we had the night off and he didn't have to deal with unpleasant men barging in or distasteful sounds from the next room when he was trying to sleep, but he was never _with_ any of us. He liked to play cards, and he took a bit of wine when the mood struck him."

Now it was Peter's turn to be surprised and impressed. "I've misjudged him, I think." He pressed his finger into the page of the dictionary and closed it.

"One night," Raynbi went on, "Prince Rabadash came barging in there, and I told him I was otherwise occupied and that I didn't want to see him that night. Biyda stuck up for me, but Rabadash was...embarrassed, he did look the fool...well, anyway, he would have had Biyda hung, but I hid him on the roof, where the stacks of extra flour were kept, until they were gone."

Peter opened the dictionary again, looked up her words, then laughed, "I think I am liking Ed more and more, talking to you. Rabadash is not someone I have a high opinion of, his courtship of my sister didn't exactly please me."

"You may tell her that marrying him would have been very unpleasant to say the least; he orders beheadings in his sleep." She suppressed a chuckle. "I once hit him over the head with a northern visitor's walking stick in hopes of making him shut up. He woke up with a headache, naturally, but he still kept at his mad ramblings."

"Can I ask your honest opinion, Lady Raynbi?"

She twisted her neck away from the window her eyes were drifting over to again. "Certainly."

"Do _you_ think it's safe to let him keep spending time with my sister?"

"I would trust Biyda with my life." She lifted up her wounded arm. "In fact, I have. But my life isn't worth much, so I don't see how my opinion helps."

"On the contrary, it helps a great deal," explained Peter patiently. "You might not have led the kind of life I would want anyone close to me exposed to, but from it you've learned to know a rogue when it matters, have you not?"

"I have," she conceded.

"And?"

"And I would think he would treat your sister with as much honour as he did a house full of courtesans, likely more."

"In which case, I think our interview is coming to a close." Peter breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, you've been most enlightening. But you might still need stitches, so I'll be back within the next couple of hours to see how the blood is clotting."

"There is one more thing," Raynbi said, trying to speak in Narnian and failing miserably. "That mark you noticed in his face...I've seen it, too. Something troubles him, Physician, but I don't know what. Maybe it is some illness, not of the body but of the mind. All I know is that when he first came to our house from where-ever he'd been, he slept so soundly that not even a fight in the adjoining room could make him stir, like he hadn't gotten any sleep for months."

Speaking of sleep, that very night Edmund found himself plunged into a very deep slumber, untroubled by dreams at first; but then, suddenly, his eyelids began to move and he was not in a bed in Coriakin's guest room.

No, he was in a graveyard, looking around at the tombstones, all of which had strange names on them he couldn't read clearly.

Someone was walking around behind him; he knew that because he could hear little footsteps breaking twigs and crunching down on dried leaves.

As he turned to see who it was, he realized there was a long dagger (a hunting knife, not his own dagger with Aslan's head depicted on it) in his right hand that he could have sworn hadn't been there a minute ago.

A glint of pure gold caught his eye, and Edmund saw that the person was Lucy, wearing the golden dress Eustace had mocked and Peter referred to as 'adequate'; she was tending to a small injured bird of some kind, completely oblivious to any danger she might be in, alone, at night in a dark graveyard.

Lucy finished mending the bird's wing, and tossed the blue-feathered creature up into the night air where it took flight and soared far, far away from that dreadful place.

How Edmund envied that bird!

"Edmund!" Lucy noticed him standing there, and seemed not to see the knife at all, in spite of its faint silvery twinkle in the murky moonlight. "There you are. I've been so worried!"

"You shouldn't have come here," he told her hoarsely. "Why couldn't you just stay where you were? Didn't you know it was dangerous?"

Lucy touched his arm. "I'm not afraid of the dark, Edmund."

"You should be," he said softly, almost more to himself.

"Come on, then." She gave his tunic sleeve a little tug. "We're going home."

"You're not going anywhere." Edmund felt his eyes filling with tears and, pulling away from Lucy's light grasp, steadied himself on the nearest tombstone. "I'm not allowed to help you."

"Help me?" She grinned uncertainly, as if she thought he was telling a joke. "How do you mean?"

He couldn't do this! Why didn't Jadis turn his heart to stone first? It was far too painful. He would be dead before he could go through with betraying another demistar. Everything hurt, inside and out.

Stumbling backwards, he banged into a stone monument with a little bell hanging from an arch.

It started ringing, echoing through the previously silently graveyard.

Suddenly Edmund _could_ read the names on the stones; they were the names of all the other half-blood star girls before Lucy.

His breath caught in his throat, choking him. His fingers cramped around the hilt of the dagger.

"No!" he shouted, dropping the knife, watching it fall soundlessly to the ground, landing on a moist, freshly mulched grave. "Please don't! I can't do it! Not again! She cannot make me!" His three ground rules were evidently non-existent in his nightmare.

An impersonal voice blew into his ears and head like the wind. "She already has, don't you know that?"

A cold green mist filled the graveyard, blocking his view.

"Lucy!" he screamed, searching for her with his hands out in front of him, groping like a blind man, finding nothing; the mist had turned into a thick wall of black darkness.

All he heard was a sharp little scream that definitely came from Lucy's throat, followed by a softer cry of pain, then a shallow gasp.

There was nothing after that.

"Lucy, where are you?" he kept shouting, getting no answer.

He was all alone in the darkness, with only his conscience for company.

"Wake up!"

It was Lucy's voice; he wasn't alone after all! "Hmm?"

Why were his eyelids so heavy? Was it only dark because they'd been closed? Had he only imagined the mist and the wall of darkness? Why was he lying down? And why was the graveyard suddenly so comfortable?

His eyes shot open and there she was, garbed in a sleeping shift and dressing-gown instead of a golden dress, at the side of his bed, shaking his shoulder.

"Lucy!" he gasped out in relief.


	11. Watching at Doors

"You were asleep," Lucy said soothingly. "It was just bad dreams."

Edmund swallowed and sat up.

"You know, Ed, it's very foolish to sleep on your back when you're prone to nightmares," she told him.

"Says who?" he demanded, not unkindly, though in a slightly raspy voice.

"Peter," she said simply. "He's dealt with insomniac patients before."

"I'm not insomniac," Edmund pointed out.

"Still," said Lucy, shrugging.

"What are you doing in here anyway?"

"You were screaming my name."

Edmund winced. "Was I?"

"Yes, in your sleep." Lucy got down on her knees so that they were eye-to-eye. "Loudly enough for the whole floor to hear. It was so clear that at first I thought you were awake."

"Why has no one else come, then?"

"Well," she explained, "Tumnus and Eustace are in the pantry, they couldn't sleep; now they're just eating up all of Clara's banana bread. Someone brought a sick child into the drawing room for Peter to attend to, so he isn't in his room, either. Alexander and Perry, I don't know where they are, they must have gone out, though I can't imagine why they would take off in the middle of the night. Aravis and Polly are with Peter, helping tend to the sick child. Gael fell asleep in the library again, so Susan just put a blanket over her then dozed off in a rocking chair herself. Raynbi's room is on the opposite landing, the wind on the balcony can drone out any sound coming from this direction. And Lilliandil, as you know, has gone to stay with other friends in the area for a bit, wedding planning and what-not. She won't be back at the mansion anytime soon."

"There was no one else to come," Edmund realized. "No one else heard me."

Lucy smiled and took his hand. "You're very cold."

"I'm all right."

"What was your dream about?"

Edmund shook his head. "Nothing, it was...silly..."

"I doubt it," Lucy said, giving the hand she still held a light squeeze. "Gael used to have night-terrors; she told us she saw dryads gone bad and wild with willowy twig-like hands coming at her throat."

"Gael has a very active imagination," Edmund commented dryly.

Lucy snort-laughed. "It was because the curtains were too long and the tree close to her window cast frightful shadows. Clara changed the curtains and she hasn't had bad dreams since."

If only it were that easy for me, Edmund thought wistfully, even a tough bitterly, stupid as it was to be envious of a little girl no bigger than a bug bite.

But, now, what was he to say to Lucy? He could say, truthfully enough, that he dreamed of her certain death and it upset him; Tumnus would approve greatly of such a smooth cover-up. Only the words seemed unable to pass his trembling lips. He could also say, maybe, that he had dreamed of graveyards and green mists, but then Lucy would think him mad, or at least pathetic, having a fear of ghosts and bad weather.

She mightn't have, really, but in his mind the dream was not scary without the thread of truth running through it. If that thread were cut, he should look very dense indeed.

However, he could not tell her the truth. And his three ground rules were coming back to him in earnest.

"I won't make fun of you, you know," Lucy reassured him. "I wouldn't."

Poor Lucy, so innocent, attributing him a simpleton's motives for keeping silent. Edmund sighed and noticed for the first time that she still had a grip on his hand. There was something so comforting about that innocence, stirring up emotions he hadn't expected to feel, laced with an entirely different kind of fear from the nightmare-induced one.

Where were you the night when I cried myself to sleep in Charn because my back hurt so badly? He wondered, thinking how much he would have liked to have her with him then, holding his hand like she was right now.

On second thought, in spite of the fact that she was bound to reach it eventually, should all go according to plan, Edmund paradoxically took back that very wish the second he wished it, not wanting her harmlessness tainted by Charn's cold, barren cruelty.

Without thinking, he sat up a little straighter and kissed her on the lips.

Lucy let out a little throaty sound of wordless surprise as he pulled away, gaping at him, stunned.

That had been completely unplanned, and Edmund knew if Tumnus or Eustace learned of it, he would never hear the end of the matter. He was, because he hadn't messed up before, to wing most small things; offering her the dagger, silencing the neighbors, giving her his marshmallow at the bonfire; but an out-right display of affection like that should have been used more strategically.

The thing was, he hadn't been thinking strategy-or of Jadis or Charn or his freedom. For that split second, it had just been himself and Lucy.

This was exactly what he was supposed to avoid; genuine attachment. And what exactly was he supposed to do or say now? This was happening all wrong. If only someone-anyone-else had heard him screaming and come to him. He would have had to come up with a lie to explain why he'd been screaming Lucy's name, but that would have been easier than this was.

"I..." stammered Edmund. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."

Lucy let go of his hand, still staring at him bug-eyed.

"Lucy," he said, in a less shaky tone, "I wasn't thinking. I must have been more shaken up than I..."

She bit her lower lip, blushing in the dark. "I didn't mind so much," Lucy blurted awkwardly.

Gaining full control of himself again, he leaned close to her face. "But I'm _not_ telling you my nightmare."

"Why not?" She smiled, in anticipation of a jest.

"Because, unlike little Gael, I happen to like the curtains in my room." It was a poor attempt at humour, but somehow he knew Lucy would laugh at it anyway and that he would laugh right along with her, trying to shake off what was left of that incredibly random kiss.

The following morning, Edmund wanted nothing more than to be left alone, to have some time to think over what he'd done last night and to then promptly forget it and numb himself to any further lingering feelings.

Unfortunately, that was not going to happen, because shortly after breakfast-which of course meant sitting at that king's court sized table with _everybody_ -Tumnus took him aside into his room, and insisted that there were some things they needed to go over immediately.

"Can't it wait?" Edmund couldn't help whining as the faun closed the door behind them.

"No, it cannot." Tumnus gave him a very serious look and pulled out a piece of paper from behind his back.

"Hey, where were you keeping that?" Edmund asked, blinking. "Did you even have that when we walked in here?"

"Never-mind that," said Tumnus. "Have a seat."

Edmund rolled his eyes and plopped down into a chair, feeling like an over-stressed child being forced to sit through dull lessons in a stuffy classroom when all he wants is to go outside and clear his head.

"I've figured out, Edmund, exactly how we are going to over-look this whole courtesan issue."

"You've built a magical carriage that travels back in time?" he said sarcastically.

"Don't be smart with me," the faun retorted. "And as a matter of fact, what we need to do, is not so much explain _her_ away, but make _you_ look like a saint."

"Yeah, good luck with that," Edmund snorted.

"All right, maybe not a saint, per say," Tumnus gave in, as that was a bit of a high bar to clear, "but definitely someone truly worthy of Lucy P. Ramandu."

"I stand by my aforementioned statement," he replied, wrinkling his nose.

"We'll play the 'young man rescued courtesan out of the goodness of his heart but has no interest in her' card."

"Well that's easy, as I _don't_ have any interest in her-not of that sort, anyway."

"And we exaggerate how much you and Lucy have in common," Tumnus pressed on, undeterred. "That's what this paper is for." He flapped it emphatically. "From now on, Edmund Maugrim, whatever Lucy likes, you love it too; you think it's the best bloody thing ever and you'll dare anyone to disagree."

" _What_?" Edmund's voice grew almost squeaky with indignation.

"So, I've, from talking to Gael and Clara, made up a list of the things Lucy likes."

"Oh, boy." Edmund put his hand to his forehead; this was going to be a long, long morning. Why couldn't he just find out naturally what Lucy liked, from actually _talking_ to her, instead of via a lesson he was being tested on? Surely, that would have been much, much easier!

"You like cinnamon in your porridge," Tumnus began.

"Fine." He shrugged; that wasn't untrue, he actually _did_ like cinnamon, when it was available.

"You're also an aspiring young poet."

"No, I'm not." Edmund cocked his head at the faun. "No bloody way."

"Lucy likes poetry, and now so do you, young man."

"Fine, I'll _like_ poetry, but I'll be dashed if you're going to make me _write_ it."

Tumnus sighed heavily. "If that's the best you can do."

"Trust me, it is."

He cleared his throat. "Your favorite play is Bareface."

"Actually," Edmund corrected him, "it's the Odyssey." He had snuck into a theater once when the actors were preforming that, and liked it a great deal.

" _No_ ," grunted Tumnus impatiently, "you like _Bareface_." He flapped the paper again. "Says so right here."

"If you're going to make me into a spineless sap," Edmund exclaimed, "why don't you just make me like Romeo and Juliet and have done with it?"

"In a minute, you're going to have an intense interest in ballet and dream of one day preforming in the famous Beruna opera house," the faun threatened him. "So take what I give you with a grain of salt, and know it's for the best.

"You have a sick mind, Tumnus." He folded his arms across his chest.

"Your favorite flowers are roses."

"Of course they are." He rolled his eyes again.

"Now let's talk colours." The faun's face was dead-serious, but Edmund couldn't take it anymore. "I think your favorite colour should be salmon, because it's neutral and we don't want to be _too_ obvious, having _all_ the same favorites."

"By the Lion, Tumnus! Do you want her to think I'm a bloody pansy?" Edmund raised both of his eyebrows up as high as they would go.

"So a man who likes salmon is automatically not interested in women?"

"A man who knows what salmon even _is_ definitely smacks of that impression."

"Wait." Tumnus help up a hand, suddenly catching onto something. "Did you just say, 'by the Lion'?"

"I think I did." Edmund felt his face recoil. "Where did that even _come_ from?" He had never said that before.

"Well, where-ever it came from, keep it," ordered Tumnus, sighing approvingly, as if he thought there might just be hope for his charge yet. "According to Clara, Lucy is exceedingly fond of Aslan."

The door creaked and the latch lifted, having been closed improperly.

Edmund and Tumnus felt their hearts pounding and their breathing caught up in the very middle of their throats; someone had over-heard them...how much, they could only wonder fearfully.

Surely they would be found out and thrown out of Coriakin's mansion on their bums, Jadis waiting to make them suffer for botching things up so badly, for being lousy game pieces and making her lose this round. She would likely have her pawns beaten until they couldn't breathe without agonizing pain searing through them.

So it can only be imagined, the look on the faces of the boy and the faun, when in walked Eustace, alone and smirking.

"There once were two Traitors," he said smartly, "who wasted their time, not locking their doors and installing a chime."

"Bleh, dreadful!" Tumnus grimaced. "And that is exactly the sort of bad poetry, Edmund, that you should avoid corrupting poor Lucy's innocent taste with."

"You try coming up with a rhyme on the spot like that," frowned Eustace, coming in and shutting the door behind himself.

"Don't you ever knock?" Edmund demanded.

"What were you trying to do?" Tumnus added. "Frighten us to death?"

"I'm a guest here, too," snapped Eustace, looking, however snotty he sounded, a great deal more tranquil than usual, almost dazed. "I'll do as I please."

"Not in my room you won't," Edmund countered.

"Let's just keep our heads," Tumnus cut in. "Please, sit down, Eustace. I'm trying to make sure Edmund knows all of Lucy's favorite things by heart."

"Oh, never-mind about _that_ ," Eustace sighed, gazing out the window instead of sitting down like he was told. "I've got my own problems now."

"Oh, really?" Edmund gave him the stink-eye. "Well, I'm sorry that my trying to get us all our freedom isn't interesting enough to collide with your little world."

"Edmund, what do you think of the name Jill Pole?" Eustace turned around, his eyes had a clouded, besotted look about them.

"Uh...I don't really know..."

"You don't think it's the most beautiful name you ever heard?"

"Um, no."

"Well, you always were an ignorant fathead," Eustace stated, furrowing his brow, clearly less than pleased with his cousin's response.

"Please let me take a break so I can hit him!"

Tumnus grabbed Edmund's shoulder and forced him to stay sitting down. "No; learn now, hit later." To Eustace, he said, "And who is this Jill Pole person, anyway?"

"A girl I met today," Eustace told them. "I saw her walking down the road leading a donkey." He sighed again, very melodramatically. "I swear, cousin, time stopped when our eyes met." Then, "The only problem was that, once it started up again, she was gone."

"So, basically," Edmund said sardonically, "you saw some girl you thought was attractive, stared at her slack-jawed and motionless, then didn't even realize she had left your presence?"

Eustace came crashing back down to earth, practical enough that his cousin's words had some effect on him. "Yeah, pretty much," he murmured at the floor.

"How did you even learn her name?" Tumnus asked, a little curious in spite of himself.

"I heard the donkey say it," said Eustace.

"Bravo, Useless." Edmund clapped his hand together in a mocking gesture. "Even the story of how you met the love of your life is as incredibly boring as those books you like reading."

" _Lucy_ likes some of those same books," Tumnus put in sharply. "So don't insult them until we've gone over which ones."

"I can't take this anymore." Edmund stood up, struggling until Tumnus had to give in and release his shoulder. "I'm going for a walk, and maybe I'm going to talk to Lucy while I'm at it."

"You're not prepared," Tumnus protested, pointing pathetically at the paper.

"Blast the paper!" Edmund made a fast-walking dash for the door, grabbing onto the latch and forcing it up. "And if I _do_ talk to Lucy, it sure as the bloody sunrise won't be about the colour _salmon_!" He charged out of the room broodingly and slammed the door behind himself.

"Blimey!" exclaimed Eustace with widened eyes. "What's the matter with _him_?"

Edmund stormed down the hallway, so cranky that he even kicked over a decorative plant (which he immediately went back and set up straight again, because it wasn't his house, after all; he wasn't a complete brute).

Passing by Perry's room, he heard what sounded like a woman weeping.

He crept close to the door, which was open just the slightest crack, and pressed his eye into the gap; all he could make out was the back of a woman with long, dark hair (he was certain it was the same woman who had shown up in his room not too long ago, calling herself Lord Perry's wife and refusing to let him see her face). Then he caught a glimpse of Perry, who appeared to be trying to comfort the woman, as well as to muffle the noise of her crying-an aching, piercing sound which refused to be muffled, causing him to give up and stick more strictly to mere comforting.

"Everyone will find me out," cried the woman, burring her face in Perry's shoulder. "I can't hide like this. I'll start to show soon."

"What if we confessed, told them everything...?" Perry's voice sounded troubled and uncertain.

"This was your idea, Perry," whispered the woman. "And there's a reason I agreed to it, for all my bemoaning it. Because it's the only way."

"We have to tell Peter, at least," he said quietly. "He's our physician, he needs to know."

"He _can't_." The woman shook her head. "What if he sends me back? I can't go back there, Perry. I want to stay with you; I love you. You drive me mad sometimes, but I can't fathom being without you."

"You'll never be without me," he swore, wrapping his arms all the way around her. "I'll never let it happen; never!"

"How can you promise that? _How_?"

He rubbed her back. "Because I love you, too. If they take you away, I'll go after you. I _will_ find you."

"And in what condition do you hope to find me, Perry?" she sobbed, pulling as close to him as humanly possible while he continued stroking her lower back. "What if I can't carry it full term? What if I get ill? What if my last breath is spent bringing it into the world, hoping you'll come in before my eyes close for ever, and you can't be there? What then?"

"That's why I've changed my mind," Perry replied wearily. "That's why I think we need to tell Peter the truth and beg him to help us."

"No!"

"Alexan-"

"How can you even suggest that?"

Edmund strained his ears; he knew that it was none of his business, really, but he could have sworn that Perry had almost started to call his wife 'Alexander' before she cut him off.

"It's not nice to spy at people's doors," said Lucy's voice as she came up behind him.

Edmund turned around and sneered, "It's worse to spy on someone spying at someone's door!" Tumnus wouldn't have liked him sneering at the girl he was supposed to have practically everything in common with, but he didn't care, not right then.

"Where did you hear that?" laughed Lucy, standing with her hands behind her back.

There came a gasp from inside the room. "Perry, the door!"

Perry let go of his wife, got up off the bed they had been sitting on together, and slammed it shut in Edmund's face, undoubtedly wondering how much the little sneak had heard.

"Who was that in there with Lord Perry just now?" Edmund wondered aloud.

"I don't know," Lucy said meekly, wondering why it mattered. "I only saw the back of a head."

"Me too." He took a few steps away from the wood of the door. "But don't you think it's weird, Perry being in there alone with a girl?"

"What's wrong with that?" asked Lucy, honestly unsure of what he was getting at.

"Oh, forget it." Edmund didn't care that much; he was already growing bored of the topic.

"Where did you go off to, after breakfast?" Lucy wanted to know. "You didn't even come down for luncheon."

Edmund scowled. "I was detained in a business meeting with Tumnus."

"Oh, I see." She remembered seeing Eustace leave the mansion earlier and finding herself thinking that perhaps Edmund was avoiding her on purpose because he was embarrassed about kissing her the night before when she woke him up from his nightmare. Now, she thought she had probably been wrong. Edmund _did_ look tired and irritable, like he'd been listening to too much business talk and needed a break desperately.

"Lucy, can I tell you something?"

"Of course." She smiled encouragingly.

"My favorite play is The Odyssey," he blurted out, more to spite Tumnus (he hated everyone at the moment, including the faun, his cousin, and himself) than for any other reason. "I know you probably prefer Bareface, but _I_ don't. And I don't _have_ a favorite flower, so don't bother asking me that, ever."

Lucy crinkled her forehead and stared at him strangely, taken aback. "I like Bareface a great deal, but I also enjoy the Odyssey. And, I...I don't mind that you don't like flowers."

I didn't say I _hated_ all flowers, thought Edmund. Out loud, he said, in a much more level tone, "Oh. That's all right, then."

"Are _you_ all right?" She was beginning to worry about him.

"Getting better, I think." He inhaled sharply, then let it out.

"That's good."

"I'm sorry for being so harsh, Lu," Edmund told her. "I'm a little tired."

"It's all right," Lucy said, looking down at her feet momentarily.

"I'm just under a lot of stress."

"No, really, I understand."

"Lu, don't you ever stay angry with _anyone_?" he blurted out before he could help himself.

"I try not to," Lucy said, with a little shrug of indifference. "Peter says holding grudges is bad for a person's over-all health."

"Yes, because it's obviously _that_ and not that you're incapable of having an argument longer than the duration of maybe thirty minutes, and only if you're in a terrible mood."

"Why do you care so much about my not arguing with people?"

"I don't know." He scuffed the side of his bare foot against the floor. "Maybe I'm a little jealous."

Her furrowed expression of confusion faded and her smile returned. "You shouldn't be; if you didn't argue _sometimes_ , you wouldn't be you." Blushing and lowering her voice she added, "And, well, I _like_ you, Edmund."

Well, he thought darkly, there's one area Tumnus is not going to get me to agree with her on.

But, there! She had finally said it; she did like him, all was going according to plan. And it was making him feel rather sick to his stomach, like he wanted to hurl (preferably, himself, off one of the mansion's various balconies).

He could practically hear Tumnus and Eustace hissing in his ears, " _Say_ it! Say you like _her_ , too!"

All that came out of his mouth, however, was a sort of muttered, "I have to go," before he vanished down the hallway and back into his own room.

"Look who's back," said Tumnus, a little peevishly, upset with him for walking out like he had.

"Fine, you were right," Edmund grumped. "I wish I'd stayed. Does that give you pleasure?"

"Cousin Edmund, what's amiss?" Eustace actually looked at him with a somewhat worried expression. "Are you ill? Your eyes are watering."

"I'm _fine_ ," he groused, picking up a pillow and throwing it at his cousin's head. "Just get out; and take Tumnus with you!"

As soon as they were gone, Edmund lifted up the floorboard that was his latest hiding place for his stash of Toffee-Leaves. He had a whole lot of problems he was just dying to forget, and a ton of muscles aching to be unclenched; starting with the ones in his jaw as he slowly began chewing on the first leaf he pulled out and placed in his mouth.

He must have fallen asleep after getting a bit of a high, because he woke later, passed out on the rug by the unlit fireplace, one arm covered in soot and ashes, to the sound of a knock on his door.

"Who's there?" murmured Edmund groggily, sitting up and sneezing.

"It's Tumnus."

"Oh, hold up." He stood, walked over, and unlatched the door.

"What happened to you?" The faun noticed his sooty state and glazed-looking eyes.

"Don't worry about it," he moaned. "I'm really tired. What do you need _now_?"

"I hope you're not too tired," said Tumnus, almost apologetically; "because Lucy's going to a gathering tonight at one of Clara's friend's houses in the village. I think you should escort her."

"If I say no," Edmund asked, feeling with his tongue around the inside of his mouth, which tasted like crud and dirty sugar, making his words slur together a bit, "are you going to make me go over that blasted paper again?"

"It wouldn't hurt."

"Yes, it would. I'll go."

"Good boy."

"Tumnus..."

"Yeah?"

"I really hate this."

"Stay strong. Soon it will all be over."

"I'll be downstairs in five minutes, is that sufficient?"

"Should be."

"Tumnus, are the stores still open today? In the village, I mean."

"I should think so, but only perhaps for another hour at best."

"Could you run down and buy me something?"

"Can it wait till tomorrow?"

Edmund made a so-so motion with his hand. "Eh..."

"All right, what's so important?" the faun sighed, giving in.

"It's for Lucy," he informed him.

"Oh, that's different."

"Thought you would say that." He nodded. "Green cloak, velvet, larger size if possible."

"Lucy's petite," Tumnus pointed out.

"So? The bigger the cloak, the more warmth she'll get from it when..." His voice trailed off; he didn't need to say more, and it was dangerous to say more anyway, lest they be over-heard.

"Think she'll have the good sense to take it with her if she goes after you?"

"I really hope so."

" _Susan_ would," whispered Tumnus sadly. "Too bad about her connection to her brother, otherwise it could have been her instead."

"I know, but it still would have hurt," Edmund decided. "Just in a different way."

Five minutes later, Edmund went downstairs to find Lucy waiting for him. She was wearing a fairly plain, ankle-length, purplish-gray dress that Susan had picked out for her; it lacked Lucy's usual taste of more vibrant shades (golds, reds, even various hues of sky blue), giving her rather a different look than her normal clothes did, but Susan nevertheless still had a gift for selecting clothing that was neat and pleasant to look at as well as flattering, whatever colour it was.

Lucy laughed almost hysterically when she saw Edmund.

"It's the hat, isn't it?" Edmund said, taking it off and stashing it behind a large ceramic vase. Tumnus had insisted on his wearing a rather absurd-looking top-hat; he had _tried_ to tell the faun it made him look like a real idiot, but they hadn't seen eye-to-eye on the matter.

"I'm sorry!" Lucy pressed her hand to her mouth until the remainder of her laughter subsided. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with the hat in itself, per-say, but it _did_ look _very_ funny on Edmund, and part of her was quite glad he took it off, because otherwise she didn't know how she would avoid giggling every time she glanced in his direction.

"It's all right," Edmund laughed along with her. "It's a horrendous hat, really."

"You can pick on the dull dress, if you want," Lucy told him generously.

"Nah, no thanks." He pulled a wad of crinkly wrapping paper out from under his arm. "Here, though, I think this might help."

"What is it?" asked Lucy excitedly, coming forward and taking the rather dilapidated-looking parcel from Edmund.

"Open it and find out."

She ripped the paper and her fingers brushed against a length of the softest green velvet she'd ever felt in her life. "No! You _didn't_!"

"Surprise!"

"I can't believe you remembered!" she exclaimed. "But I told you I didn't need a cloak."

"Business has been going good," he said. A little _too_ good, unfortunately; but it wasn't as if he could freely tell her _that_.

"It's beautiful." She kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you."

She liked the cloak so well, in fact, that she didn't even check it at the door when they reached the gathering, long and heavy though it was; she just draped it over her arm and carried it around with her.

In spite of the fact that everyone was thrilled to see Lucy there (any friends of Clara's were friends of hers, as well), they didn't really _see_ much of her that night.

"Where did Lucy Ramandu and that young man she arrived with get off to?" asked one dryad, helping herself to a bit of wine.

"Last I saw, they went into the study at the back of the house," someone answered.

"Are they still in there?"

"I think so."

"What are they even _doing_ in there?"

Behind the oaken-wood study-door, Edmund exclaimed, "Checkmate!" putting Lucy's purple-glass king in check.

They had wandered in there for no real reason, laughing madly over something funny that had happened when a dancing faun accidentally crashed into a refreshment table, when they saw there was a very fancy glass chess set and matching glass checkered board on display in the very centre of a maze-like configuration of maple-wood shelves and pear-wood chairs with white-and-cream raised brocade cushions.

Lucy had asked Edmund if he played or not, and the next thing they both knew, they were in the middle of a mini chess tournament.

"Best ten out of twenty?" Edmund offered after Lucy gently placed her king-piece down sideways, admitting defeat.

"You're on." She smiled and began rearranging the pieces.

An hour later, it was Lucy's turn to say, "Checkmate!"

By pure accident, Edmund knocked his king-piece down too hard and it broke in half, also leaving a little crack in the board itself. "Oops."

Lucy pressed her hand to her mouth.

"I'm guessing the queen-piece is going to have take the throne in his stead."

Lucy's shoulders shook with laughter.

Edmund fully intended to pay for the person who owned the set to get the crack mended and the king replaced, but, just for the fun of it, he made a break for the nearest window, ready to sneak out. "I think it's time for me to go."

"Go?" gasp-laughed Lucy.

His eyes shifted to the broken glass, then back to the window he was opening. "Care to join me?"

Looking both ways, even though she knew perfectly well there was no one else in there besides the two of them, Lucy took his hand and climbed out with him.

Laughing so hard they thought their sides would split open, they ran hand in hand down the road, glancing occasionally over their shoulders, as if at some imaginary pursuer.

They ducked into the back door of a theater to take 'refuge' and accidentally walked in on a bunch of actors eating and drinking after a late show.

Fortunately, the actors didn't seem upset; in fact, a few of them were slightly intoxicated and probably thought they knew the walk-ins from somewhere they couldn't place.

They sat with them for a bit, even eating with them, but Edmund fully drew the line when someone offered Lucy a cup of tea with a strong, sickly-sweet, yet very sharp, odor coming up from the steam.

"Don't drink it," he hissed in her ear. "Not even one sip."

"Why not?"

"It's laced with Toffee-Leaves, can't you _smell_ that?"

"How do you know what Toffee-Leaves smell like?" Lucy had never smelled them before in her life.

"Just put it down," Edmund hissed, avoiding the question. "Trust me."

They left after that, racing each other back up the hill to the mansion, panting for breath when they arrived.

"I won!" Lucy squealed.

"You did _not_ ," Edmund teased, fake-sneering at her. "I was way ahead of you."

Lucy stuck out her tongue at him, pushing open the doors and almost collapsing with laughter under the coat hooks. Wiping tears of mirth from her eyes, she hung up her new velvet cloak and let out a sigh of contentment.

"Lucy!" cried an urgent little voice.

"Gael." Lucy's face dropped to see Gael coming to her as pale as if she had laid eyes on an apparition. "Gael, what is it? What's the matter?"

"There's a letter," she said hurriedly. "A letter from the east; from Cair Paravel!"

"Yes, so?" King Frank had often written to their father; he was a Duke, after all.

"I...I'm not sure; it's something about you, it must be," Gael gasped out, grabbing onto one of her elder sister's hands. "Father and Peter said I was to bring you to them the second you came back into the house. Come on, you must come."

"I'm coming," she assured her, letting Gael tug her hand down several corridors and under three different arches till they reached the study Coriakin, Peter, and Susan were seated in, waiting for her.

It was none of Edmund's business, so he was not invited in. If Lucy had thought of it, she would have grabbed his hand and dragged him in behind her, but she did not think of it, and she was already shut up inside the study with her family by the time she realized he had been left outside.

The virtue of that particular study, though, was that the door was partially made of glass, and Edmund found that if he stood close enough, he could get a glimpse into the room.

He could not see very much, only Lucy standing before a high-backed chair, and what looked like Peter's hands placing a letter into her own.

Lucy appeared to read the letter, looking up over it at her brother, sister, and father, asking what could it mean. Then, understanding dawning across her shock-stricken face, her knees and ankles gave way and she fell back into the chair, grasping at both arms, looking very pale and impossibly small in the seat that was far too large for her to fill.


	12. The Queen Piece enters the Game

When the Ramandu family exited the study (Edmund jumping back, away from the door), most of them had blood-shot eyes; Lucy looked as if someone had first handed her the moon and then put a ten thousand pound weight on her shoulders to help her support it, and she was struggling not to let the pressure of it crush her.

"Lu," Edmund couldn't keep the genuine concern out of his voice, "what happened?"

Lucy goggled at him speechlessly, still too stunned to speak.

Peter put his hand on his little sister's shoulder protectively. "Don't pester her, Edmund, she's had a shock; we all have."

Gael tried to hand Lucy a soft muff lined with ermine fur (not _Talking_ ermine, of course), thinking maybe it was cold that was making her fingers tremble so.

"Gael, sweetheart, stop trying to make her take the muff," Peter said shortly. He was fond enough of Gael, but there was no girl-child on the flat face of the entire Narnian earth who's part he would ever take over his little Lucy's. "I'm sure if she wanted it, she wouldn't keep pushing it away like that. Give her some space to breathe. It's time you were in bed, anyhow. Clara, see to it, won't you?"

"Come along, dear." Clara took Gael by the hand and led her to the staircase.

"W-what," began Lucy, quiveringly. "What if I can't..."

"Don't let's worry about that now, Lu." Peter squeezed the shoulder he still gripped. "It mightn't happen for years still, you know. By then...Well, for now I think you're in need of a little hot chocolate; we'll go to the pantry and see if the Dufflepuds aren't competent enough for that much, eh?"

"Um, all right..." Lucy managed feebly, sounding more like a little girl of eight or nine than the fifteen year old who had spent the evening running and laughing and barging in on theater casts.

And just like that, once again, for the second time that night, Edmund found himself completely forgotten; no one felt the need, apparently, to answer his questions. Coriakin and Susan seemed contented to let Peter deal with Lucy's shock on his own for the time being and retired to their quarters for the night with barely a second half-glance in Edmund's direction.

Nothing else for it, Edmund discreetly crept towards the kitchen he had seen Peter usher Lucy off to. Careful not to let the door creak as he did so, he pressed his ear to it, listening.

"This is madness," Lucy was saying over the sound of a tea-spoon clinking around in a china mug; "it really ought to be _you_ , Peter, not me."

"Lucy," came the response, heavily, "I try not to worry you, and I would do anything to protect you, but you're getting older, and even with all my best efforts, you must..." His voice trailed off, then picked back up again. "You must know I have some trouble with myself that would make me less than ideal for the job."

"You have some mood swings," Lucy said offhandedly. "I've heard of countries being ruled by people who are cursed with full-blown madness."

"Lu, I...I never let you see it, but...I'm very prone to depression." Peter sounded a little ashamed, as if, by admitting this, he was letting her down somehow. "I've even started taking certain herbs for it, that's how bad it gets sometimes."

"You talk about it with Susan, don't you?" Lucy realized. "A lot? In your head?"

Peter must have nodded, but it was only a guess on Edmund's part, since he couldn't see through this door the way he could the one leading to the study.

"You could have told me, too," she said, sort of quietly.

"I didn't want to burden you."

"I wouldn't have been burdened, I would have been a help," she insisted, a little hurt. "You always do so much for me." Her voice became weaker, like she was holding back a sob. "I would have wanted to do something for you."

"You _can_ ," said Peter gently. "You can take the job, with all your unwavering valiance, when the time comes. And I will be very happy with my brave little sister."

"I still feel it should be you, if any of us-you're the eldest."

"Did I ever tell you what I promised Susan, about not fighting? Ever? That disqualifies me straight off."

"I think she was very wrong to make you promise that," said Lucy, coldly. She always had been able to relate and sympathize more with her elder brother over his twin.

"Wanting not to die?" he said, in about as harsh a tone as he could ever manage with Lucy. "That's wrong of her?"

"No." (Edmund could imagine Lucy pausing here and shaking her head.) "It isn't. Not wanting you to live, _that's_ wrong."

"I do live," said Peter. "I do. Maybe not as open and freely as everybody else. But, like you said, I'm the eldest. That is my duty to my country, to myself and my family. To see to it that my sisters have what I have to give up. And that starts with you, Lucy."

"Do you really think I can do it?"

"Oh, I _know_ you can."

"What if I have no allies when the time comes?" Her voice grew mouse-like, barely a trickle. "No subjects who even like me?"

"Well," said Peter, "I know you will at least have _one_."

"Who?"

"Me."

Edmund dared to, ever so slowly and quietly, turn the knob and peer inside.

It was a bright little kitchen with a marble counter-top with several tiny silver candlesticks set atop it, twinkling like ironic little stars. Lucy and Peter both sat on tall brass stools, their elbows propped against the edge of the marble.

"I love you, Peter," said Lucy, leaning on her brother's arm, which he wrapped around her, pulling her close.

"I love you, too, Lu."

"Forgive my saying so, Mr. Maugrim, but snooping is one of the lowest crimes a house-guest can commit that doesn't involve killing or thieving." A voice behind Edmund, speaking these words, made him jump.

He spun around, finding himself face to face with Clara, who had evidently finished putting Gael to bed and was on her way to tend to some other duties in the kitchen.

He closed the door back up again before answering, since Lucy and Peter still hadn't noticed him eavesdropping. "I was worried," Edmund confessed, truthfully enough. "About Lucy...and the letter. No one's told me anything. Did somebody die?"

"Not yet," said Clara in a low voice, almost a whisper. "But the cause of this hubbub seems to be that when King Frank dies (or, Aslan willing, retires from his place on the throne in fairly good health at a ripe old age) he has decided he wishes to abdicate in favor of Lucy."

Edmund felt his whole face fall. "What? But...King Frank has children...children of his own; everybody knows about them."

"For one reason or another," explained Clara, with a dazed shake of her curly head, "they have all been declared unable to take up the throne. Honestly, we're all shocked out of our skins. We never thought...well, Lucy, being of noble-birth, _is_ twenty-first in line to the throne, no shame or lie in that...but it means that _twenty-one_ people would have to be incapable of ruling or else _die_ for her to become queen of Narnia. Naturally, it's always seemed an exceedingly far-fetched notion."

"Until now," mulled Edmund, his eyes gone so wide they were nearly as big as an owl's.

Clara sighed. "Yes, until now. After Frank passes, the little girl I sang to sleep and scolded and attended to since early childhood will be queen of an entire country."

That changed everything; whatever hope burned bright in Edmund subconscious, of true freedom, flickered madly, letting him know it _would_ -slowly and painfully, but surely-go out. "Clara, can you do me a favor?"

"What is it?"

"Send Tumnus and Eustace to my room, I need to speak with them."

"Yes, I'll see to it."

Up in his room, Edmund stuffed an old tunic sleeve into his mouth to muffle the noise and screamed and screamed until he thought he would go unconscious if he kept at it much longer, finally reaching forcefully into his own mouth and ripping out the sleeve, hurling the teeth-mark covered scrap of cloth into the fireplace, gasping and panting for air.

"Cousin?" Eustace, followed closely by Tumnus, crept into the room, which had been left unlatched for them.

"Not only are we traitors," said Edmund slowly and painfully, sharp on each bitter word, "but we're all guilty of high treason."

"Have you gone round the bend?" demanded Eustace, wondering what could have gotten into him.

"What are you saying, Ed?" asked Tumnus, less harshly.

Swallowing hard, Edmund explained to them about Lucy being twenty-first in line to the throne of Narnia. "I never considered this." Looking at Tumnus almost as if this were _his_ fault, even though-of course-it wasn't really, he added, " _You_ never even warned me of the possibility."

"Blast! Well, how was I supposed to know that twenty-one people would drop dead?" snapped Tumnus. (This, of course, was not completely accurate; twenty-one people did _not_ all just simultaneously drop dead, only about ten persons had actually died, the others were just unable to take the throne, despite being quite alive.)

Edmund gritted his teeth. "Don't you understand? We'll never be free to live in Narnia now."

"Why would we _want_ to?" snorted Eustace, indifferently, tossing his head back.

"Your Jill Pole lives here in Narnia," Tumnus pointed out meekly.

"Oh." Eustace's face changed completely, the realization that whatever ideals he had of living in a proper city in Calormen on mountains of gold and drinking iced-tea all day (he really had some _very_ nonsensical ideas about what life in Tashbaan was like), Jill would not be there dawning on him. "Well, yes, there is that."

"We've played the game, and lost," Edmund said darkly. "No other way around it."

"This changes nothing," insisted Eustace, with surprising firmness despite a quiver in his voice. "We can still go through with it."

"Yes, but we can't keep as low a profile on her disappearance now," Edmund snapped impatiently. "It will get out that we three had something to with it. Even if Jadis _does_ keep her word and free us, Narnia won't ever be a safe place for us to set one foot in again. She has us in spades. We don't need icy walls to be prisoners; she'll see to it that we're trapped, and that we stay trapped."

"There are other countries we could live in," Tumnus said at last, though dejectedly, for he too loved Narnia in spite of all his years wasted away in Charn.

"As fugitives," said Edmund weakly. "For ever?"

"It's the best chance we've got," the faun replied. "The very best. Don't give up now, we're still getting closer."

"No one ever said anything about leading a queen to her death," Edmund grumbled, sticking a gold-plated poker into the fire and prodding at the embers with an overly intense vim.

"Is it really the fact that she's a queen that bothers you, Edmund?" Tumnus asked as gently as possible. "Or is it something else?"

"What else would it be?" he snapped, dropping the poker.

"Maybe that you..." began Tumnus. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. "I know how you feel. I like her more than I should, too. She's...special."

"You don't know anything," snorted Edmund, willing himself not to let tears fill his eyes.

"You're both babies," declared Eustace in rather an aggravatingly condensing tone, leaning against the bed-post. "Can't deal with bringing the witch one more little girl."

"What if it was _Jill_?" Edmund demanded suddenly, standing up and whirling round on his cousin. "What if Jadis said she would kill us all unless you jolly well murdered Jill Pole with your own two hands? Then what? Would you be able to do it as easily as skinning a rabbit for supper? _Would_ you?"

Eustace's face twisted like someone had just punched him in the gut. "That's madness." His face straightened out again. "Besides, it's rummy to think of something that would never happen. Jill isn't a demistar. And must you be so dramatic? It isn't as if you have to do anything to her yourself; all you have to do is lead the demistar to Jadis and let her take care of it."

"Demistars are people, too! Or have we betrayed so many we've forgotten that?" cried Edmund.

"So it's true," Tumnus noted sadly. "It _isn't_ her queenship that pains you."

Edmund bit his lower lip and drew out his dagger with Aslan's head on it. Squinting at it through blurry, tear-blinded eyes, he whispered, "We were getting along fine before _she_ came along and was all 'Aslan this and Aslan that'." He threw the dagger in the direction of the bed (Eustace ducked to avoid being skewered by it) where it pierced through a pillow. "I didn't need another reason to hate myself!"

"Well, Cousin," said Eustace, as soon as he was sure it was safe to stand up again, "let's be logical and look on the positive side; at least things can't get any worse."

Tumnus put his hands on his goat-hips and clicked his tongue disapprovingly; he was not a very superstitious faun by nature, but everyone knew that those words-from anybody's lips, in any given circumstance-always spelled trouble.

That night, Edmund had a new nightmare. It was very odd, even for his bizarre sleeping terrors; he dreamed of an empty glass chess board, gleaming on a round table made of ice and stone, and from the gray, empty sky above, there fell, plummeting down straight towards it at an alarming speed, the most elegant marble queen-piece ever sculpted. It was not a faceless glass figure, like the ones he and Lucy had played with earlier; instead, it had the exquisitely carved shape of a young girl garbed in queen's robes and gowns, a slender glossy layer of which, down by the skirt, she was lifting up, presumably so she could walk. Aside from the eyes, which were hollowly engraved, the chess-piece bore a remarkable resemblance to Lucy P. Ramandu the demistar, twenty-first in line to the throne of Narnia; it even had her lips and cheek-bones _exactly_.

The queen-piece finally finished falling, shattering as it landed on the board, which then cracked right in half itself, and Edmund woke in a cold-sweat.

Or at least, he thought, for a moment, he was awake, and maybe he was at least half so, but whatever state he was in, he saw the misty apparition of Jadis of Charn floating towards his bed and almost vomited from sheer terror.

He felt around for his sword, as if to defend himself (this, in the end, convinced him somewhat that he was indeed still dreaming, for in real life he liked to think he wouldn't have been so foolish as to think a mere sword would protect him from the White Witch) but found only his dagger with Aslan's golden head on it, the blade of which was still embedded in his other pillow.

Mad with fear and rage, he actually dared to reach into the green mist and grab hold of the witch's wrist; and suddenly he felt the misty hand taking shape and materializing in his own.

Delirious with his own success, especially since Jadis appeared to be putting up about as little resistance as an ordinary mortal girl at best, he pulled her down close to him and pressed the dagger against her throat.

It was amazing, really. If he didn't know better, Edmund could have sworn Jadis wasn't a seven foot tall creature of darkness who hadn't a drop of human blood in her, but a girl less than half his size; for it was way too easy to over-power her. It had never occurred to him that he _could_ be stronger than his oppressor. He wondered if it was because he was using the dagger with Aslan on it (that seemed absurd, but no more so than the fact that he had a chance of fighting the witch with unspeakable ease).

'Jadis' let out an angry hissing sound.

Edmund prepared to push the dagger into her skin and break it. Maybe he would finally find out if witches bled as much as humans or demistars.

"Please..."

Did Jadis just say... _please_? He hesitated; the politeness that didn't reek of coldness and condensation certainly was out of character.

"Edmund!"

It struck him then that Jadis didn't sound a bit like herself. She sounded as much like a harmless girl as she felt. Was this a trick? Her voice seemed so soft and frightened, almost like she was...crying...

He had made the queen of Charn _cry_? With real, honest to goodness tears?

Suddenly he couldn't see her very well; his eyelids were shut though he couldn't remember closing them. In fact, he had been trying very hard not even to so much as blink.

Opening his eyes, he almost felt the urge to take the dagger and slit his own throat; it _wasn't_ Jadis he had pressed back-first against the nearest bedpost, blade against her very white throat, one wrist caught in a death-grip. It was...it was... "Lucy!"

Edmund lowered the blade. "Lion's alive!" She was _trembling_ , poor thing; he felt like such a horrid brute. "What are you doing in here? Was I screaming in my sleep again?"

She shook her head, shrinking away from him slightly, though less so than she might have if he hadn't started with the term 'Lion's alive'.

"I can't sleep," Lucy managed at last.

"Let me guess," he said, dropping the dagger entirely, thinking only two things (first, that Lucy probably didn't like to see him with it anymore, Aslan's head or no, and second that perhaps putting it down might reassure her that he wasn't going to hurt her...at least...not right that second, anyway); "bad dreams?"

She nodded. "You left your door unlatched again and one rush light on...so I thought you might be up."

"Oh." He noticed her rubbing her wrist. "You _can_ come closer if you want, I won't pull a dagger on you again, I promise."

"What were you dreaming?" Lucy wanted to know, taking a few steps closer to the bed. "You _must_ tell me this time."

"If you must know," Edmund said, forcing himself to laugh so that she would think it didn't scare him at all now that he was awake, "I dreamed I was in a hand-to-hand combat with a seven-foot witch, the only weapon at my disposal was a dagger."

Lucy arched a brow. "All right, now you're teasing me, aren't you?"

"No, seriously, that's what I dreamed. Now, your turn."

" _My_ turn?"

"What was _your_ bad dream about?"

Considering she hadn't pulled a weapon on him in _her_ sleep, Lucy might have figured she didn't owe him an explanation, but she was in his room, and he did seem a little shaken himself, more nervous and upset than he let on.

"Nothing so exciting as yours," she confessed, sitting down on the bed beside him. "I dreamed I was deathly ill, trying to rest in a simply enormous bed in Cair Paravel, and a large, horrid nobleman (he sort of looked a bit like Prince Rabadash, actually, only fatter and lighter, not so thin and dark) was trying to force me to sign the regency for ruling Narnia over to him. I knew he would be cruel, and that Aslan himself wouldn't like it if I signed, but I was so tired and weak, and my throat ached...I almost gave in, I felt the pen forced into my hand...then I woke up, sobbing, both because I was scared and ashamed and because I was so happy it was only a dream."

Edmund blinked at her, feeling oddly moved. In his mind, strangely enough, her dream seemed a bit worse than his own. Because it messed with poor Lucy's mind; his own-well, for what it was worth, it was already damaged-a little more messing with it wouldn't make it cease functioning. But Lucy, who had just found out she was to be queen? It didn't seem just.

Gently, he slipped an arm around her, trying to comfort her. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," she whispered. "I'm just...afraid."

"I'm guessing putting a dagger to your throat didn't help."

"Well, it _was_ a distraction, at least," teased Lucy, twisting her neck so she could smile at him reassuringly. "I wasn't thinking about being queen at all when you did that."

"I didn't hurt you too badly, did I?" He glanced at her wrist.

"It's not broken," she let him know. "It's not even bruised up too badly. It just stings a little, that's all."

He wondered for a moment what would have happened if he had really fatally harmed Lucy with the dagger. Would he have gotten away with it? Lucy hadn't even screamed too much; not so that anyone heard in came in, anyway. How would the witch have reacted, he pondered, if he had carried an already dead demistar to her in a sack? She would be displeased, because she hadn't gotten to see her make the journey and suffer and all that nonsense. But she might be semi-pacified that Edmund himself, her best traitor, the one she liked tormenting, would suffer worse even than on the two separate nights she had whipped him so hard the blood ran from his back.

Lucy was too trusting; even more so than the other demistars had been. The others, they were clueless in their own way, but they had not been so openly good to him. Any of the other demistars, for instance, would have fled if he ever accidentally pulled a knife on them, and Tumnus would have had to spend an afternoon helping him come up with a plan to regain the lost trust. With Lucy, that wasn't even necessary; he was already forgiven.

Didn't she know that if he decided to end her suffering ahead of time, he could so easily grab the dagger again right this very second and thrust it into a little space near her spine that would paralyze her instantly? Why did she insist on thinking he was _good_?

After a bit, he asked Lucy if she was ready to go back to her room yet, only, to his surprise, she asked if she could stay with him instead. So he scooted over to make more room and let her take one side of the bed (he also let her have the pillow the dagger hadn't sliced through, causing it to leak feathers galore).

It took almost three hours, but eventually she fell asleep, and he could hear her steady breathing-the smooth breathing of a person who is either having good dreams or none at all.

This is nice, he thought, not having to sleep by myself after a nightmare.

He wished it could just stay like that. If only time would stop right in this one comfortable moment; if only morning wouldn't dawn and make him remember that he was going to betray her and that each day brought that moment closer and closer.

Early the next morning, Peter and Susan thought they heard a funny sound on the other side of one of the mansion's back doors. Yes, the wood was thick, but none the less, it was a sharp (albeit muffled), anguished little sound.

Susan looked up from some patchwork sewing she was doing (Clara could have done it for her, but she felt rather in the mood for practicing making neat little stitches) and stated, very plainly, "Peter, there it is again."

She had been going on about the sound every five minutes since they got up, and he was trying to diagnose an illness a faun had come to him with a week ago and not yet recovered from, pouring over his books, hoping for some answers. "Su," Peter said, very tiredly, "by the Lion's mane, I heard you the first fifty times, and the thirty-eight times in my mind _before_ that."

"So what do you think it is?" she pressed, annoyed with his absent attitude.

"Honestly," he yawned, rubbing at his heavy eyelids, "anyone can tell it's just the sound of a baby crying."

They both stopped; Susan dropped her patchwork, and Peter let go of his book (it fell to the table-top with a great _thud_ ).

" _Baby crying_?" they both exclaimed at once. Why should there be a _baby_ outside the mansion?

Opening the door, they found what appeared to be a small boy-child of only a year old at best, lying in a straw basket with a few blankets haphazardly wrapped around him. He was decently dressed, though not for long exposure the chilly weather.

"Oh my!" cried Susan, bringing the basket inside and shutting the door behind herself.

"Where did _that_ come from?" said Peter, bemused.

Susan cocked her head at him. "Mum never had that talk with you?"

"Funny," he said, making a face at her.

"Poor little thing," said Susan, lifting the child up into her arms. "He must be a year or so, but he's so small for his age."

"Who do you imagine would have left him here?" Peter mused.

"I have no idea." She smiled at the baby.

"I've heard of mothers dumping unwanted newborns, but anyone can literally see he wasn't born yesterday." Peter sighed heavily, shaking his head. "Do we even _know_ anyone who was pregnant last year?"

"Clara's niece," said Susan, "but this can't be _her_ baby, _he's_ not a faun."

"Let's bring him into the drawing room," Peter suggested, taking the baby from his sister's arms. "We can tell everyone to report there immediately before breakfast so we can figure out what do to."

"Yes," agreed Susan, nodding somberly. "I'll tell Clara to inform everybody of the change in plans."

Soon enough, the whole household, guests and all, were gathered in the drawing room. Edmund, Tumnus, and Eustace arrived last, just behind Lucy, who of course had woken up in Edmund's room and so had been with him when Clara came in and said that something was up with Master Peter and Lady Susan and they must all come into the drawing room at once.

Edmund stopped in his tracks when he saw the baby. "You have got to be joking."

"Oh no," muttered Tumnus.

"Isn't that...?" began Eustace, a little too loudly.

"Perhaps," Susan said, addressing everyone, "we could all go out in groups, around the village, asking if anyone's lost a baby."

Edmund bristled, fidgeting with his fingers and grinding his teeth.

"Ed, no!" hissed Tumnus into his ear. "I know what you're thinking...please, please _don't_. Just act natural."

"Perhaps Aravis and Polly..." Peter nodded at the two Griffin Riders in question. "Perhaps they could get the message out faster, by flying."

 _Goodbye, Lucy_ , thought Edmund, glancing resignedly over at her one last time, _you're going to hate me for ever after this_. "Wait!" He came forward, smiling weakly (more of a grimace, really). "That won't be necessary, I know who's baby that is."

"You might have mentioned that a bit sooner!" laughed Peter, relieved, never suspecting what Edmund's next words would be.

"We're doomed," murmured Tumnus, burying his face in his hands. "It's over."

"I hate my life," muttered Eustace.

"Everyone," Edmund said slowly, "I would like you all to meet Paddy." He made eye-contact with Lucy then dropped it, before adding, "Paddy Maugrim."

Tumnus moaned.

Raynbi crinkled her forehead and leaned forward curiously. She had not known that Edmund had any living relatives that he shared a surname with. Funny thing, though, how the baby didn't resemble Biyda (or even Eustace, for that matter) in the least. They both had brown eyes, but that was about it; and not even the _same_ brown eyes, if it came down to that.

Edmund closed his eyes, and swallowed at a wad of saliva building up in his mouth and throat, feeling the blood drain from his lips and every single mark on his back throbbing as if they were all magically opened back up again. Looking at the child, then back at everyone's waiting eyes, he finished, "Paddy Maugrim...my son."


	13. The Summoning

_Edmund collapsed onto the cold, icy floor behind the steel-and-stone barred door. To be more exact, he was shoved in mercilessly, no mind being paid whatsoever to the blood streaming in quarts down his back and soaking his billowy white shirt._

_At first he thought he was alone, but then he heard the jingle of chains, followed by the voice of a familiar faun. "Oh, Ed, I'm so sorry! It looks even worse than the last time."_

_Edmund lifted up his head; he wanted to roll over and look directly at Tumnus while he spoke, but with the state his back was in, that wasn't going to be happening anytime soon. "Spare me your condolences, Tumnus," he grunted through gritted teeth. "Save them for someone who cares."_

" _Ammi's had the child, then, this very hour?"_

" _No, Jadis just felt like whipping me early in case it was premature," Edmund growled sarcastically, still unable to move._

" _Is Ammi all right?" the faun wanted to know. "Is she safe?"_

_Edmund swallowed and twisted his neck so that his burning cheek could rest on the cold floor, a few hot tears escaping from the corners of his eyes in spite of his best efforts to hold them back. "I don't know."_

" _What do you mean you don't know?" asked Tumnus, confused and anxious._

" _I mean Jadis bloody well took me out of the room and gave me a sound lashing the second that baby was finally out," Edmund explained wearily. "I don't know how Ammi is. It's a boy, that much I know."_

" _Did she throw anything at you during labor?"_

_Edmund took a minute to answer; talking was painful, it made his back vibrate slightly, causing it to smart like crazy. "Yeah, actually...a very ugly vase..." He closed his eyes and forced out a painful laugh. "I ducked...it hit the wall...it's in a million pieces now."_

" _Then I'm guessing she's all right," Tumnus said, as cheerfully as possible under the circumstances. "If she hadn't thrown anything, then I would be concerned."_

" _Heh." Edmund sighed. Everything hurt so bad; it was like someone had set the whole backside of his body on fire._

" _It's not her fault," whispered Tumnus, trying to comfort him, scooting as close as his chains would allow. "Ammi's not a bad person; she made a mistake, that's all."_

" _I know," muttered Edmund, turning his head again and pressing his forehead against the floor now. "Why would I take two floggings for her if I didn't believe that? Besides, she's...she's not the one I blame for what happened."_

The sound of Tumnus pacing back and forth, his goat-hooves click-clacking on the floor, jolted Edmund out of his memory. He had been recalling the day-night, rather-his 'son' was born, staring out the window, elbows pressed against the sill, wondering if Ammi knew that the baby was with him again (not that he thought she would care much if she did).

"This is not good," Tumnus was muttering to himself, shaking his head as he paced. "Not good at all."

Eustace was currently bouncing Paddy up and down on his knee and singing to him. "...And if that mockingbird don't sing, Uncle Eustace is going to buy you...absolutely nothing..."

Paddy started bawling, loudly.

"Eustace!" snapped Edmund, turning round and frowning at him.

"What?" His cousin stopped bouncing the baby. "I didn't want to raise false expectations in the kid."

"He's a year old, Useless." Edmund rolled his eyes and picked up the baby himself. "He doesn't need your awful sing-along lectures, thank you very much!"

"What if we told Lucy that you were drunk...really, really drunk?" Tumnus moaned and grabbed onto both of his horns despairingly. "No, that won't do, that only makes it _worse_."

"What if, instead of coming up with more ways to lie to Lucy, one of you made yourselves useful and helped me compose an angry letter to the blasted foster family who decided to bloody well dump him at the Ramandus' doorstep?" suggested Edmund grumpily, gently placing the baby down in a rocking-chair by the unlit fireplace.

"Listen, young man," Tumnus snapped, scowling at him. "The last lie you told Lucy was all your own. In fact, I recall specifically telling you _not_ to say it. So dry up, and don't try to pin this one on me."

"I didn't _lie_ ," Edmund insisted vehemently. "Paddy's my son. Case closed."

"Oh, for pity's sake, he's not yours!" Tumnus almost fell back into the rocking-chair, but then remembered Paddy and lifted him up first.

"Prove it." Edmund raised both eyebrows at him and took Paddy (who had started howling all over again), from the faun's arms.

"All right, be that way." Tumnus rubbed his temples. "You will be the death of me, Ed." He inhaled sharply. "You _do_ know how people actually go about having babies, right?"

"You mean they _don't_ come from the stork?" Edmund pretended to look utterly shocked, supporting Paddy with one arm so that he could put a hand to his mouth in mock-surprise. "And here I thought Ammi was just fat for nine months. That explains so, so much."

"Edmund..."

"Eustace, hand me that bottle on the dresser so I can feed Paddy, would you?" He decided to ignore Tumnus for the time being.

"Why must you be so stubborn?" demanded Tumnus, pounding his clenched fist on the arm of the rocking-chair. "Paddy is out of the witch's power; you took the flogging of a lifetime, but it's _over_."

"He's hungry," said Edmund peevishly, taking the bottle of cow's milk from Eustace who was uncharacteristically being obedient without an hour's delay beforehand. "Can we talk about this later?"

"If you persist in this," Tumnus pressed, "everyone here will grow to hate us."

"They already do," he sighed absently. "Lucy looked like I'd slapped her across the face when I told everyone the child was mine." He winced involuntarily. "Peter looked...well, surprisingly like Ammi when she's about to throw something hard at my head."

"Why, then, do you keep it up?" cried the faun, exasperated.

"Jadis still has Ammi," Edmund pointed out crossly. "Have you forgotten that? She could be listening to us right now, through anything-maybe she can hear us through any magical artifact-like the green and yellow rings-we don't know for sure, do we? I will see myself hung in a public square before allowing my back to be ripped to shreds ends up being for naught. As far as it concerns anyone, I'm Paddy's father, and that's the last I want to hear of it."

Tumnus couldn't argue with that logic, evidently Edmund was more than merely stubborn, he had thought the matter through-at least somewhat. "But you aren't going to tell the Ramandus and their guests the same exact..." His voice trailed off; if Jadis was listening, if Edmund wasn't simply being paranoid, he wasn't sure it would be a good idea to say the word 'lie' again in this conversation. "...The same exact _story_...you told the witch about how Paddy was conceived, are you?"

He shrugged and put the baby down on the bed, turning back around to face the faun. "I was thinking about it."

"No, no, no," said Tumnus firmly, leaping up out of the rocking-chair. "And this is where I fully draw the line! You tell them that tall tale, and we'll be out of this mansion on our bums before Peter can even pull a sword on you threateningly. You can't honestly think they would ever let you near Lucy again if you told them _that_."

"I suppose I could water down the official story a bit," Edmund gave in begrudgingly. "For Lucy's sake."

"Here's what we do; we tell them you were incredibly vulnerable-the both of you-and you thought you were madly in love...it didn't work out...you got hurt, and the consequence is that you now have a lovely baby boy." Tumnus sighed, a little too pleased with himself. "Say, we could even tie in a ring of truth. You asked Ammi to marry you because of the baby, and she refused. You were heartbroken."

"Heartbroken?" Edmund snorted. "Where's the truth in that?"

Tumnus waved it off. "No, no, _that's_ not the truth; the other part, about the proposal and the baby."

"I'm so confused," Eustace put in, furrowing his brow. " _Were_ you heartbroken?"

Edmund rolled his eyes. "No, Eustace, I wasn't."

"Let us hope the real father never shows up," Tumnus said under his breath, perhaps not so wisely. "The child _does_ favor him, even if he has got Ammi's eyes."

Edmund, who had been turning to the window again, spun round on his heels and glowered at Tumnus. "I did _not_ just hear you say that!"

"Eee..." Eustace winced and shook his hands in a very 'somebody's in trouble' kind of way. "You said the R-word."

"I know," groaned Tumnus, scrunching his eyelids and wishing he hadn't; even in a voice so quiet, it had been rather too risky bringing that touchy subject up in front of Edmund.

" _Real_ father? That good-for-nothing?" Edmund folded his arms across his chest. "Where was _he_ when Paddy needed changing? Where was _he_ when Ammi couldn't get out of bed? Where was _he_ when Jadis found out about Ammi's condition and demanded to know who was responsible?"

"Oh, boy," said Eustace, looking down at the floor. "Here we go again."

"No, _I'm_ Paddy's father. I know exactly what I'm doing." Edmund glanced over at the baby who was now in the process of trying to eat a feather that had fallen out of the pillow that had gotten stabbed with a dagger the night before. "Paddy, take that out of your mouth!" He went and peeled the spittle-dampened feather off of the kid's lips.

"Real professional, Cousin."

"Hey, I _tried_ ," Edmund protested, sitting down on the bed beside Paddy who was now crawling into his lap. "I gave him away because I wanted him out of the witch's grasp. I didn't want him to be one of us. I wanted better for him. And look who's back." He shook his head and sighed, "I can't even give away a baby without messing up."

Tumnus became very thoughtful for a few moments. Then, "Hold on, wasn't the family you gave him to in the last place we...erm... _visited_...a demistar girl in?"

"Ow, I need that finger for later!" (Paddy had just bitten Edmund's index finger.) To Tumnus, he said, "Yeah, why?"

"How did they find us?"

Edmund's face fell. "We were...tracked..."

The faun nodded. "Someone in that area was able to pin-point our whereabouts to this very mansion."

"Maybe they mean to leave us alone now that they've gotten rid of the baby," Eustace suggested hopefully.

"I'm not comfortable with this, regardless," said Tumnus fearfully. "We've never been tracked down before now."

"You don't suppose Jadis has stopped blocking our paths from the eyes of most mortals?" Eustace asked.

"Yes, that's exactly what I think." Tumnus rubbed nervously at his nose with the back of his hand. "She wants a better show this time. Our lass mission for her, our grand finale. She's going to make this one count."

"It's like being on an unconfirmed deadline," Edmund realized, holding Paddy a little more tightly, as if that would somehow keep the baby from being truly tangled up in all this rot. "We have to get the future queen to like me and follow me all the way to Charn before it's too late; before we're caught and put to stand trial. Paddy's arrival isn't just an obstacle, it's a _warning_."

"You shouldn't have claimed him." Tumnus clicked his tongue. "We should have let them think we didn't know who he was any more than they did."

"And watch them give away my son?" Edmund scoffed pointedly. "It was hard enough the first time, giving him up myself."

"You don't know that they would have given him away. Perhaps, when no one claimed him, they would have kept him here."

"You might be right about that, Tumnus," conceded Edmund, resignedly. "But I hadn't thought of it at the time and it's too late _now_ , at any rate."

"So what's our next move?" Eustace wanted to know.

"I think we need to contact Jadis," Edmund said, knowing his idea would not be met favorably; indeed, he was not looking forward to it himself, not in the least, but he felt it must be done. "She'll want a progress report by now, and you know she will be furious if she doesn't get it."

"But I don't _like_ summoning the witch," moaned Eustace, looking truly frightened in spite of his overly-whiny tone. "She's scary."

"Ed's right," Tumnus said. "She's going to be a whole lot worse than _scary_ if we don't appease her-perhaps even _appeal_ to her, if we can."

"So when do we do it?" Edmund said bravely. "I'm game for any time, as long as none of the Ramandus can see what we're doing, and we have someone watching Paddy. I'm not doing any witchcraft in front of him."

"Tonight," Tumnus decided, though he didn't like it any more than the other two traitors did. "We'll sneak out one of the back doors and find someplace suitable."

The only suitable place to be had was, as it turned out, a pasture of tall grass amidst a tall grove of widely-spaced trees. It was ideal because, not only was out of the sight of the mansion's many windows and small dwarf-doors that might as well have been called windows too when all was said and done, but though most of the trees were far apart, there were two that stood close enough together that they could set up the summoning right in-between them.

It was a long walk and all three pairs of shins (both goat and human) all located boulders and prickly thistles in the dark far more often than any of the traitors would have liked, but in the end they arrived at their intended destination fairly unscathed.

Eustace and Tumnus wore woolen blue capes they'd had in their possession since Charn to keep warm, but Edmund had an almost new cloak of black wool lined with brown silk given to him by Clara to match one of the handed-down tunics that Peter had out-grown.

In spite of the finer quality of the cloak, however, he still shivered just as much-if not more than-the other two Traitors did. His only true condolence was that Paddy was safely with Raynbi, who, although she jestingly questioned Biyda's judgment in leaving his only child with a former courtesan, asking him whether or not he had forgotten where they met in Calormen, was more than willing to buy his excuse of a splitting headache leaving him in desperate need of a babysitter for the night.

For, while he had naturally summoned the witch many times before, it wasn't at all the sort of thing that got easier with time and practice. Indeed, _this_ time in particular was the hardest yet, as previously he had not known about Aslan's opinion of witchcraft.

True, he had always known it was wrong, meddling with such forces, but in his mind, as it was largely involuntary, he had been able to make excuses for himself. Only, the thing was, he hadn't known just _how_ wrong it was. It felt like letting everyone down-even if they couldn't see what he was doing. Peter, Susan, Coriakin, little Gael, all of these he was letting down by what he was about to do-most of all, he was letting Lucy and Aslan down.

Yes, it seemed ridiculous to feel guilt over something that, compared to the major betrayal he would have to pull on all of them, was relatively minor, yet he couldn't help it-it didn't _feel_ minor. What it felt like was cold mouse-feet running and down his spine and a rock the size of a giant's fist settling unevenly in the pit of his stomach.

"Do we have everything?" asked Edmund, making sure once they were all standing together.

Eustace and Tumnus nodded simultaneously. If only Eustace had nodded, Edmund would have made them all double-check, but the faun, as he well knew, was better at making sure they had all the necessary items even than he himself was.

Gulping, Tumnus made the T signal with his hands; sighing, the other two traitors did the same. At least, even if they were barely friends even after all they'd been through, they all knew they were in this together-like family.

"Let the circles be drawn," said Edmund in a serious monotone completely void of emotion.

Tumnus picked up a long stick and drew two circles on the ground; one in-between the two trees they had chosen to set up under, and a bigger one right in front of it.

"Prepare the fire," he added.

Eustace began tossing as much firewood as his arms could hold at a time into the smaller circle between the two trees. Tumnus picked up a tinderbox to set flame to the wood, as well as a couple of dull black flint-rocks to rub together if it should fail for whatever reason.

Once the fire was going, Edmund took some smelly, unsavory herbs out of a knapsack and threw them onto it. "Tumnus, the ice."

The faun handed him a large silver basin in-laid with rubies (stolen from Susan's room earlier) full of ice chips (stolen from the cold-box in the pantry at the last minute).

Edmund took the basin solemnly and began flinging the chips (which were so freezing against his already cold hands that they made his fingers go numb) into the fire one by one, chanting something that sounded perfectly dreadful in Charnian.

"It is time," said Tumnus gravely.

Edmund, knowing what he had to do, removed his cloak and handed it to his cousin. If this had been a less upsetting occasion, he would have warned him not to lose it or else; as it was, though, he said nothing at all. Then, as smoothly as a small underground animal slides under the earth and into the hole he calls his home, he glided right into the second circle and, getting down on one knee, shivering only because he was chilly without the cloak, not letting any of his fear pierce through his bland expression, gazed into the fire. "Come, Jadis, Queen of Charn; your lowly slave would dare speak with you."

The fire turned green and smokey; the logs it burned upon became covered in unnatural frost which did not put out so much as a single flaming ember. There rose up from the murky, foggy flames, like an enormous glittering iceberg atop a choppy sea-wave, the alarming, partly-translucent figure of the White Witch.

On her flickering green-white face, there was the trace of an amused smile forming in the very corner of her red mouth. "Edmund, dear!" she said patronizingly. "How are you liking the Lantern Waste this time of year?"

"Very well...Your Majesty," he said stiffly. She was tormenting him, and he knew it; when this was over, he would not be permitted to come back to this Narnian village where he might have been truly happy under different circumstances.

"I thought you might." Her eyes were mainly on Edmund, the traitors' mouthpiece alone in the circle, but they did shift passively over to Eustace and Tumnus, reminding them that they should not dream they could ever fully escape her sight. "And the girl? How do you find her?"

"I like her well enough," he said, struggling not to speak through his teeth.

"I expected you would," she laughed cruelly. "You're old friends, after all." Her smile grew slightly. "Poor little wolf."

Edmund felt his chest tightening. Of course Jadis had known Lucy was the one who saved him from the hunters as a child; and of course she thought it quite a lark that he could not return the favor on threat of losing hers.

"Your Majesty," he managed darkly, "the girl will be yours very soon, and you will see her come to you of her own free will, but it will be hard to set this up in a manner pleasing to you if we are tracked."

"Hard?" echoed the witch. Her eyes narrowed and she lifted a floating, misty hand.

Edmund let out an involuntary yelp of pain as ice and frost began to form like a skin-rash all over his legs, seeping through his hose and the lower half his tunic.

"Too hard for you?" she asked again, warningly, no longer smiling.

He shook his head, holding his jawline as tightly as possible in order to avoid chattering teeth.

"You don't want me to make it less challenging, removing any deadlines or chances of obstacles when I don't see fit to?"

It was a rhetorical question, but he knew she expected him to shake his head again anyway.

"Good." Her smile was back. "You always were my favorite traitor, Edmund, the most sensible of the lot." She muttered something disenchanting under her breath and the icy rash slowly began melting and disintegrating off of his frozen legs. "Besides, you wouldn't want this little task to get monotonous. This will make it much more interesting. After all, I ask so little of you; it would be a pity if you couldn't even do that."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"But, to show you I'm not personally impeding your progress," Jadis announced, lifting her muddled white chin proudly. "I suppose _one_ single pleasant surprise is in order."

"Pleasant surprise, Your Majesty?" murmured Edmund, his lips blue with cold.

"Yes, expect it sometime tomorrow afternoon," said Jadis, beginning to fade as the ice around the logs lessened. "I imagine it will be a very intriguing little reunion."

The wind picked up and the flames went out entirely, leaving the traitors in the dark. Edmund staggered and tumbled out of the circle, lips still discoloured and cheeks dangerously flushed, and collapsed in Tumnus and Eustace's out-stretched arms as they came forward to catch him.

When he finally re-entered full consciousness, the first thing Edmund was aware of was a folded cool cloth being gently placed over his forehead. It appeared to be mid-morning, judging by the sunlight coming in from the window that caused him to cringe and blink until his eyes adjusted.

As his vision cleared, he realized that he was in his room at the mansion and that the person who had put a cool-cloth on his forehead was Susan Ramandu. "Lucy, Peter! He's awake."

"Lucy?" Edmund mumbled, trying to sit up and see where in the room she was.

"Lie back down," ordered Susan in a very no-nonsense tone, gently but firmly grasping one of his shoulders and forcing him to stay put. "You took a terrible spell in the night."

"Spell?" he croaked, only about half in his right mind at the moment. Had they caught him in the middle of summoning the White Witch? If so, why was he being tended to instead of hung or burned or left to rot in a prison cell somewhere?

Tumnus's face appeared above him as the faun leaned over the bed. "She means you fell ill without warning."

"Oh..." Suddenly his heartbeat stopped going so rapidly and his muscles unclenched.

"Raynbi _did_ mention that you told her you had a headache early last night," Peter put in, appearing in the doorway. "Here, Lucy, put this in there, too."

It took a moment, but Edmund figured out at last where Lucy was in the room, Peter's words giving him the final piece to the puzzle; she was by the fireplace, which was crackling merrily, tending to a small iron pot hanging from a hook fastened to the stones above the fire. She was helping mix some sort of medicine for him, under Peter's direction, it seemed.

"What is it?" Lucy asked her brother.

"Fire berries," Peter told her. "Stir them into the brew, then smash them with the back of the ladle."

"Is it safe to mix fire berries with fire flower juice?"

"Perfectly so," Peter assured her, putting his little sister's most immediate worries to rest. "Given that it's in reasonable doses, of course."

Lucy nodded meekly and followed his instructions quietly. She certainly did not seem her usual, chipper self.

"There's something I don't understand, Ed," said Peter, after a pause, coming to the bedside and kneeling so that they were eye-to-eye. "How did you come by the burns on your left hand?"

Edmund lifted his own hand and examined it dumbly. Yes, indeed there were vivid burns on it, from shot-off sparks of the bad magic bonfire he'd used to summon Jadis last night, but he was too weary and fuzzy-headed to think of an excuse at the moment. Furthermore, his tongue felt heavy and hard to lift, and there was a stinging, but not very deep, cut on his lower lip; he must have scrapped it on something in the fall before Tumnus and Eustace caught him, perhaps tree bark.

By the fireplace, Lucy poured some of the now-ready medicine into a wooden bowl and brought it over to Edmund. "Here, drink this. It will make you feel better."

It was about time they allowed him to sit up, he thought, taking the bowl and almost dropping it. He _would_ have dropped it if Lucy hadn't been there to grasp it and keep it steady while he brought his lips down to the rim and drank deeply. It was red and thin, with a sweet, powerful taste; like raspberries in spiced wine.

Instantaneously, his tongue felt better and his head cleared considerably.

Behind his back, Susan and Clara (who was evidently in the room too) were plumping his pillows. This was nice; very rarely had Edmund ever had anyone to take care of him in his life; he rather liked this.

There was a sadness in Lucy's eyes as she wiped a drop of red liquid off of his chin; he didn't much like _that_. It pained him so greatly, in fact, that he didn't even bother to feel embarrassed about the dribble in the first place.

Peter was still waiting for the answer to his question, but Edmund pretended to have forgotten and be thinking less clearly at this point than he actually was. If he could keep the fever-confused facade going a bit longer, perhaps he could come up with a semi-plausible story in time.

"Lucy," managed Edmund, grasping her wrist. "I...I'm sorry...I'm sorry I didn't tell you...about Paddy."

"It's none of our business," put in Susan, dismissively.

Peter said nothing, but Edmund could tell he thought that anything to do with anyone who was chums with his beloved sister was his business and that nothing that could be said now would dissuade him of that opinion.

Lucy herself, however, smiled faintly and touched his cheek with the back of her fingers. "That's all right." Probably he had been too embarrassed to confess that he was a father at his age; and, to be fair, he hadn't _lied_ about it-the subject had never really come up.

It did shock her a little, that a friend of hers, who she admittedly fancied, should have a baby in the other room, but that, even in her shock-and mild hurt-hadn't seemed like a good reason to cease keeping his company. She had not, as Edmund supposed she had, hated him-never, not even for a second.

"Forgive me?" he asked.

"There's nothing to forgive." Lucy took the bowl back and handed it to Clara.

Later, Edmund found out from Tumnus that Lucy had actually helped Raynbi take care of Paddy the night before while he had been out cold, deathly ill, while Susan and Peter were busy looking after him.

They had managed to make it seem, at no small effort, that Edmund had never left his room to begin with, simply taken sick when he was already lying down, but the burns on his hands, which they eventually attributed to an accident in the fireplace, did not exactly scream out that their word on the matter was all the complete truth.

Peter would have never thought Edmund was out summoning a witch, but that the boy had gone out _someplace_ and snuck back in seemed sure enough.

"Ed," Peter asked sometime around noon when Edmund could stand up, get properly dressed, and walk about comfortably and he caught him alone, "last night...were you drinking? For medical reasons, you need to tell me the truth. Your pulse was weak and there was one moment where your heart nearly stopped altogether."

"Peter, I swear," Edmund insisted. "I wasn't drinking."

"You were very cold as well. We managed to get you warm again, but it took a lot."

Two hours went by and Peter still got nothing out of Edmund; he wasn't drinking, he said; he didn't remember falling ill, though he admitted to telling Raynbi he had a headache; and almost everything about last night, he claimed, seemed like a big blur.

Then there came a knock at the door; Clara and a Dufflepud stood there, waiting to inform Mr. Maugrim that there was a very regal-looking visitor arrived on a splendid brown reindeer to see him.

"Who...?" Peter began.

Edmund suddenly remembered the witch mentioning a 'pleasant surprise'. Nothing 'nice' the witch ever did was simply for the sake of being so-no, there had to be a catch, something to amuse her and torment him within the vein of the 'favor'. And what could she have meant by 'intriguing little reunion'?

Unless...it must be, though he scarcely dared believe it... She was sending the last traitor to them! That made sense, in line with the reindeer. Jadis had white reindeer at her disposal, but she kept a few brown ones for the servants, though she only let them have the use of them very sparingly.

Sure enough, making a break for the stairs and dashing down it so quickly that Peter thought he had gone mad, he saw Ammi herself being led inside by Polly and Perry, a Dufflepud being told to take her white-and-red winter coat for her.

A second later, Lucy appeared just behind Edmund as he descended the remaining stairs and walked, as if in a dream where one cannot move about as quickly as one wants but is trapped in a sort of thick-feeling, awkward slow-motion, towards the girl who now stood a few feet away from the coat-hooks.

She was very beautiful, that girl, Lucy couldn't help noticing. She had a very proud, nicely-shaped face with familiar brown eyes (almost identical to Paddy's), a sleek figure, and long dark reddish hair that curled naturally at the tips. She stood nearly a whole half-inch taller than Lucy, and there was something so refined about the way she bore that slightly superior height that made the demistar feel like a silly little child in comparison.

Edmund and Ammi stood staring at each other for nearly two full minutes.

At first, everybody in the room thought they were merely too stunned in the presence of the other to find their words, but then they soon realized that it had more to do with a sort of competition between the pair, to see who would break eye-contact first.

Neither one seemed to be relenting until Edmund unwittingly blinked as a speck of dust hit the corner of one eye and Ammi half-smiled triumphantly and wiggled an eyebrow.

Then, he said, very blankly, "Ammi," and lifted his chin.

"Edmund," she said back in the same meaningless tone.

"So, you're here."

She shrugged. "I'm here."

"Polly," said Edmund, turning to the Griffin Rider because she was the person closest to them at the moment. "This is Ammi, Paddy's mum."

Lucy bit her lower lip, watching and listening to this. Tears filled her eyes and she felt herself withdrawing from the stairs, hoping that Edmund wouldn't notice and, paradoxically, that he _would_.

Ammi was almost as beautiful as Susan, and she herself had no hope of that. It was a strange emotion, being jealous of somebody she didn't even know. True, she had on the odd occasion grudged Susan her beauty and compliments and wondered if she looked _anything_ like her, and she had been hurt in the matter of everyone going on about how _Susan_ looked in the golden dress while _she_ was the one wearing it, but this was so different from that. It was more than just Ammi's looks and distant elegance and sophistication; it was the knowledge that, standing together, much as Lucy hated to admit it, she and Edmund seemed like a real couple, an ideal pair from a storybook.

Worse was knowing that they-the two of them, Edmund and Paddy's beautiful mother-had already been intimate. Lucy may have been an innocent, but she knew the basics, at fifteen, of how babies came into the world. She knew, at least, that Edmund had to have done more than simply kiss Ammi once by accident after waking from a nightmare.

Now that she was back in his life, all might be mended between the two. And they had their sweet little son (who Lucy couldn't help being fond of, even after only one night of helping look after him) to consider. He might even ask her to marry him again-and she might say yes this time!

It would be nice for Paddy's sake if his parents got back together, but Lucy realized then just how much it would crush her own little heart if they did.

**AN: Please reviewth.**


	14. The Many Battles of Edmund and Ammi

"Where are Edmund and Ammi?" Tumnus asked Eustace, who was sitting in a chair in one of the studies, reading a large book about fat Calormen children in model schools.

He looked up from the book in an irritated fashion. "How should I know?"

"What are you doing in here in the first place?" demanded the faun, tiredly. "I don't even remember there _being_ a study on this side of the mansion yesterday."

"You're thinking of the _other_ east wing," Eustace yawned indifferently. "I tried to tell Coriakin that this place needed some of those practical 'you are here' maps, but he's too dense."

"Why aren't you in your room?"

Eustace turned a page. "Can't find it. Thought it might be relaxing to stay in here for a bit."

"All right, well, where was the last place you remember seeing your cousin?"

"He was going into the library with Ammi, I guess he wanted to talk to her alone (jolly well threw _me_ out, anyway), but I don't know why they would still be in there."

"Oh, the library, that's nice." Tumnus looked pensive. Then his face dropped. "Oh no."

"What?" Eustace actually was polite enough to close the book and give the faun his undivided attention.

"You know that display with the two decorative swords in the library...?"

Eustace winced. "Ooh! That isn't going to be pretty."

"It never is," said Tumnus, shaking his head and sighing to himself.

"Why _do_ they always end up sword-fighting?" Eustace finally remembered to ask for the first time in years.

Tumnus arched an eyebrow and stroked his chin thoughtfully. "I think it's how they communicate."

To be fair, Edmund and Ammi began with a semi-civil conversation in the privacy of Coriakin's library, there were only two little problems with it; first, that it was going absolutely nowhere (more or less consisting sorely of pointless head nods and meaningless mumbled exchanges), and, second, that old habits don't exactly die easy, especially those that have been ingrained in two people's lives since early childhood.

"So, how was the journey?" Edmund had asked for about the tenth time, running out of things he could say in a level tone.

"Fine," Ammi replied smartly; "just as it was the last eight times you asked."

"Only eight?" Edmund crinkled his forehead. "One of us miscounted. I could have sworn it was at least ten."

She cracked a smile at that. "I think you're getting it mixed up with how many times you've asked me to marry you."

"No, I gave up keeping track of that." Edmund chuckled to himself. "Eustace _does_ claim it's been eight by his count, though."

"Well, it's closer to ten by mine, but it's only a guess."

"Yeah." There was another pause and he tapped his fingers on the side of a shelf absently. "So, Paddy Maugrim's here."

"Paddy Maugrim," repeated Ammi, furrowing her brow at him. "When did we agree on that?"

"Hey, I took two floggings for you, I think the least you can do is let me name the kid," Edmund pointed out.

"Fine, call him whatever you want. I really don't care."

"What's that tone?"

"There's no tone," Ammi snapped, in the very tone he was speaking of.

"Ammi, when you get annoyed with me, you get into the most persnickety, condensing way of speaking, and I hate it." He folded his arms across his chest and glared at her. "Oh, and no one can hear us, so _please_ drop the fake Narnian accent."

"I'll drop mine when you drop yours," she shot back.

"I actually _am_ Narnian," Edmund defended himself. He crinkled his forehead and shifted his gaze to the left momentarily, lost in thought. "I think," he added.

Ammi snorted.

Edmund's eyes flashed.

She wiggled her eyebrows challengingly, daring him to try and cross her.

Ever since they were small children, they had been routinely testing the patience of the other. They were alike and different in all the toughest ways. Being a traitor had hardened them both, but whereas it had made Edmund a near slave to his conscience on the rare occasions it was permissible, it had made Ammi reckless, leaving her with a conscience that wasn't as sharp or useful as it otherwise would have been.

A conscience, after all, is very like a compass; it will point to true north, but exposed to too many magnets it may well be ruined for ever.

This was not to say that there was never something that under different circumstances might have been called a friendship between them growing up, however.

If it had not been for Ammi, Edmund might have died young-in spite of Tumnus and his strenuous efforts to keep him alive in particular; and, similarly, Ammi would have met her demise a little over a year ago if not for his willingness to lie for her.

When they were about six or seven, Ammi had helped Edmund steal four sugar canes from a field in the Lone Islands without getting caught and since that day she had continued teaching him things. How to never slip up when doing a Narnian accent; how to prevent getting vertigo even on flat, high roofs; how to keep a low profile even in very open, public places; how to sneak in and out of a room undetected; how to cover bruises, burns, or cuts with make-up so that no one even knew you had them; and how to pick-pocket (a skill which she, in spite of her wild rebellious nature hidden behind a show of perfectly regal manners, was not all that proud of yet still saw the practical uses for); all that and more had been invaluable knowledge to him in the long run.

So when she'd gone and gotten herself into trouble, the lie to protect her had come almost effortlessly. But, because of the nature of it, Edmund himself was not pleased with how easily, coldly even, the 'confession' had just rolled off his tongue when he spoke to the witch.

It was a rubbish tale, really. If Jadis really knew him-he, who she called her favorite traitor, maybe even because she truly believed him to be as vile as he pretended to be-she would have instantly been aware that it wasn't something he was capable of.

He told the witch that he had taken advantage of Ammi one night when they were alone together (Tumnus and Eustace having gone to bed early), that he had raped her.

Naturally, the White Witch wouldn't have cared a fig about it if it hadn't resulted in Ammi getting pregnant and being temporarily of little to no use to her, but as the result of it was something very inconvenient, she wanted to hear all about it.

Which meant, unfortunately, Edmund had to _tell_ her all about it. He had to make his story consistent and believable if he wanted to pull it off. So he made up a few unsavory details, including a particularly hideous bit about covering Ammi's mouth so she couldn't scream and forcing her out of her clothes. If anyone ever really _had_ done something like that to Ammi, he would have killed them with his own two hands, and yet he had to act as if he himself had done the unthinkable willingly and of his own free choice and nature.

Telling that story sickened him far more than he let on. The other Traitors would have understood to some extent, recognizing the very inexact but still noteworthy parallels between the disgustingly fancy lie told to protect Ammi and the raw, confusing true story of Edmund's own conception, but he refused to speak to them about it whenever it wasn't strictly necessary. At times, his unceasing insistence that Paddy was his son and nothing else mattered even caused Tumnus to question Edmund's sanity.

To his tale, a hard-faced, evil-eyed Queen Jadis had only one chilly response: "Well, like father, like son; right, Edmund?" Then, pounding her gold-and-glass wand on the ice-floor by her gleaming blue-ice throne dismissively, "Leave my sight. You will be brutally punished for inconveniencing me later."

As for the truth of Ammi's story, it was simple enough; she fell in love.

It was a boy, a white boy who said he was an Archenlander, and found himself shipwrecked on frigid Charnian shores.

Ammi took a fancy to him at once, which was very uncharacteristic of her; when Edmund asked her later why she liked the chap so, she said he had a nice face.

He told her that almost anyone could have a nice face if they kept it clean and didn't scowl constantly like that horrid Prince Rabadash he'd met in Calormen had. To which she laughed and said he simply didn't understand.

Understanding or not, for his own part, Edmund hadn't cared much for the boy. He found him timid and spineless and _very_ flighty-minded. He wouldn't have doubted the foolish young man's ability to bolt at the sight of his own shadow or reflection.

And while cowardice in itself was bad enough, worse was that he seemed to think himself better than all of the traitors (who, at no small risk to their own hides, had saved his sorry life and were hiding him from Jadis-not that that mattered, evidently) with the sole exception of the beautiful Ammi.

What had _really_ ticked Edmund off was a comment made by the stupid cast-away on his very first night spent with them. The little pig had been eating the few decent food items they had stored up, with no thought to how his generous hosts were going to restock once he had finishing being their guest and filling his own belly, when he suddenly remarked, under the misconception that Edmund and Ammi were a couple, possibly even husband and wife, that he was 'very sorry' a 'splendid lass like this unearthly brown-eyed beauty' had 'thrown herself away on a _clearly_ uneducated dark-headed vagabond' never knowing, trapped in this icy wasteland, that she could have had her pick of much more handsome and worthwhile men had she been in good society.

In all fairness, aside from his priggishness, which he bore even more overtly than Eustace did, there must have been _something_ pleasing about their secret guest's personality, _something_ beyond the hollow flattery that caught Ammi's attention. For she was not the kind of girl who was easily flattered; she was attractive, and she knew it without being told. Whatever it was (and Edmund never did figure it out) it worked wonders, had her head spinning with giddy glee for about a week.

By the time the man left on the small boat which Edmund himself had repaired with Tumnus's help, Ammi was utterly convinced, because of some little ceremony the two had preformed privately with whispered vows, that he was her husband and would wait for her to be set free from the witch, never breathing a word about the Traitors to anyone, then somehow leave some kind of message telling her where to find his-their-home in Archenland.

But the stuck-up former Charnian cast-away was fickle; he had 'loved' Ammi well enough when he was with her, but she was soon forgotten in favor of an equally beautiful Calormene lady who visited his home in Archenland shortly after he returned to it safely. His father mentioned that he hoped the two would wed, and said he would even begin making some arrangements if his son had no objections.

That was, naturally, when he should have remembered he had already said marriage vows to a traitor and-unbeknownst to Edmund, Tumnus, and Eustace-consummated the union. Only, he was not nearly so loyal as Ammi believed he would be. He reasoned that the witch wasn't ever likely to free Ammi, and that it wasn't a real wedding they'd had anyway, so there was no legal qualm.

And he couldn't tell his father about his 'wife'; not after promising not to speak of the traitors to anyone. So, by keeping silent, he told himself he would really be doing her a _favor_ , of sorts.

He married the lady legally, his whole family delighted over the match, forgetting Ammi more with every passing day, and moved to Calormen with his bride.

Ammi never got over the betrayal. Even before she learned all the details, she seemed to know instinctively that something was amiss with her former romance, that her lover no longer waited for her.

She became dejected and even more irritable than usual. She had always made something of a past-time by throwing things at Edmund's head when she got the notion, but those days provoking her was much less of a challenge; she hated everyone as unconditionally and passionately as she had loved her so-called husband.

Edmund was the one who noticed the change most greatly, because he was the one who associated with her the most; Tumnus and Eustace had a habit of ignoring her, especially when she was being moody.

How could this broken girl with the dagger-eyes, he often wondered, be the same little savage who had run, laughing so hard she might well have fainted from lack of air if she'd been a little less strong, out of a sugar cane field when they were children? The same wild yet perfectly composed young woman who pick-pocketed a golden watch from a Narnian noble two days after her thirteenth birthday?

Then, one evening when she was supposed to be helping Edmund chop up firewood for their small leaky fireplace in the Traitors' joke of a reclining room, she came out, trudging through the crisp snow in her patched white parka and fingerless wool gloves, bleary-eyed, looking terrified.

Not even bothering to glance at her, Edmund had simply grunted in acknowledgment of her presence.

"I'm late," she said; it was the first time she had spoken to him in nearly a week.

"No kidding," Edmund muttered, not understanding, lifting the ax and slicing a frozen log in half.

"No, you don't get it." Ammi shook her head and grabbed his shoulder, making him turn round and face her. "I'm _late_."

He had then dropped the ax in the snow, stunned.

And now the boy traitor and girl traitor stood before each other, in a star's library, all that history and more between them, clogging the air, filling it with debts both paid and unpaid on both sides. As Tumnus rightly predicted they would, they had found the decorative swords and were dueling, with no mind to the fact that maybe a library wasn't the best place for it.

When they were apart, or at least in front of other people while together, they could both be pleasant and friendly, but when they were alone together, they were more or less the same emotionally-stunted, coarse-voiced, half-mad, grossly neglected, dirty savages they had been as children. Oh, they were more skilled in combat (Tumnus no longer fretted that they would one day slip up and put out an eye) than they used to be, but that and a few other small things aside, not much had changed.

Edmund wasn't really in the best shape for practicing his swordsmanship, considering that he had been so ill that morning from last night, but such a technicality had never stopped him before and he had no intention of giving Ammi the satisfaction _now_ , either.

Blows were blocked with perfect timing; the two swords clanged together both loudly like cymbals and rhythmically-almost musically-by turn; empty oaken and mahogany study-tables were jumped on; chairs were upset (though luckily undamaged); a number of books were knocked from their places; and some rather choice words were exchanged in-between all this.

"Why do we always end up fencing?" Ammi wondered aloud, breathing heavily as she aimed a slash at Edmund's legs.

He jumped up over the sword and landed on his feet. "I think it's how we communicate."

"Yeah? Well, in that case, I'm not done talking to you." She slammed her sword's blade into his.

"You fight almost as well as a boy," Edmund said, defending himself against another blow.

"So do you," she shot back.

He clicked his tongue. "Is that the best you can come up with?"

"You fight like a kid."

"We _are_ kids," Edmund laughed.

"Not anymore." She had that broken expression mixed with her usual haughtiness.

"That's right, we _have_ one."

"Not _we_ ," said Ammi. "Not really."

"He's more mine than yours." Edmund whacked her on the arm with the flat of the bade.

"Whatever, shut up and fight me." She didn't seem to want to talk about that.

"Fine."

Twenty minutes later they were both flat on their faces on the rug to the left of the reading nook. Ammi had tripped Edmund with her sword, and then he had unceremoniously grabbed her ankle and pulled her down after him. They were sort of tired and even though no one had called an official time out, both registered that they were in a brief state of cease fire.

"Do you remember," Ammi murmured into the carpet, "the time we locked Eustace in a demistar's wine cellar?"

Edmund laughed so hard he thought he was going to crack a rib. "Oh, that was _great_! Truly one of our finest moments."

"Tumnus was _so_ mad at us," gasped Ammi, laughing along with him, rolling over onto her back.

"Not nearly as mad as Eustace was," he commented dryly, rolling over onto his back as well, looking up at the starry-patterned ceiling trimmed with white-gold crown-molding.

Five minutes after their moment of shared laughter, and they were back on their feet, swords in hand.

Edmund, because he was still unwell, started coughing and dropped his sword.

Ammi was decent enough to wait until he recovered before pointing out that the sword was now well out of his reach.

"I think the witch's rack has given me a longer arm," he laughed bitterly, remembering the times growing up Jadis had had him strapped to it to get information out of him whenever she suspected he was holding back some useful titbit from her.

"Not longer than mine," Ammi taunted, waving her sword in a threatening manner. "Not quite long _enough_."

"You're wrong." In a flash, he had dived down and grabbed up his sword to defend himself with.

"Not bad." She seemed mildly impressed. "You're quicker."

"Good thing, too."

"Aye, that it is."

Ten minutes later, they were on the floor again, sitting back to back.

"Remember when you were five and the four of us ended up on a warm beach for the first time in months and you ran up and down the shoreline in your underwear and Tumnus couldn't get you to put your clothes back on?" sighed Ammi, chuckling.

"No," said Edmund, a little too quickly, reddening.

"Liar." Ammi hit the back of her elbow against his.

"Yeah, well, as they say, it takes one to know one. And I seem to recall you _biting_ Tumnus when he tried to make you wear your shoes again that day."

"But, gosh, Ed, you, dashing in and out of the water, screaming at the top of your lungs about running away to live in the forest as a hermit if he made you put your doublet on...I don't know if I'll ever be able to forget _that_!" She laughed so hard her cheeks flushed and ached.

"I _should_ have," Edmund said, in a slightly more melancholy tone. "Run away, I mean."

"Don't be stupid. Where would you have gone?"

"Anywhere's better than Charn."

"Not if you were dead."

He sighed and stood up, looking down at her with a pitiful expression. " _We_ could have made it, you know, if you had said yes."

"Don't talk such tosh, Edmund," Ammi reprimanded.

"It's not tosh," he told her. "You, me, Paddy...we could have..."

"What?" she sneered condescendingly. "Been a happy little family? I didn't _want_ Paddy for one, you know that. And, as I have pointed out time and time again, you don't love me."

"I had the rest of my life to learn to," he mumbled to his feet.

"Hey," she said in a softer voice, noticing something.

"What?"

"You said 'had'."

"Yeah, so?"

"The last time you asked me to marry you, you said 'have'."

"Uh-huh." He arched a brow at her. "What's your point?"

"You _met_ someone, didn't you?"

If the underwear memory had made him redden, this comment turned him several shades of crimson and scarlet. "Shut up."

"So, who _is_ she?"

"No one!" She would _not_ goad him into saying Lucy's name, not even in his head-he refused to let her.

"Edmund Maugrim has his first love." Ammi smiled mischievously, standing up and gripping the hilt of her sword. "This is too cute."

Picking up his sword, Edmund cocked his head at her. "Can we please just fight?"

She rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine, if you're too embarrassed to talk about it, we'll resume."

They fought in silence for a few minutes before Ammi asked, cheekily, "Is it Polly the Griffin Rider?"

" _No_."

"Just checking; she seemed nice."

"Oh," Edmund remembered as she blocked a blow aimed at her right arm, "just so you know, the other Griffin Rider, Aravis, is a Calormene." Ammi had had a prejudice against Calormenes since the day her lover went and married one; he figured she was going to be especially nasty to poor Raynbi, more so than to Aravis, but he would just tackle one Calormene-related problem at a time and take it all in stride. "Do me a favor and be nice to her, yes?"

Ammi sucked her teeth.

"Come on, please? For _me_?" He pouted pleadingly at her. "Do I need to take off my doublet and shift and show you my back?"

"I'll be nice," she muttered begrudgingly; thinking it was a bit mean of him to always use that to get his way with her.

"Come now, it can't be _that_ hard," Edmund teased, jumping up on one of the chairs they hadn't yet upset while she swatted her sword at the air next to his legs. "You can be very charming when you want to be."

"And you can almost not be a complete git when you want to be."

" _Nice_."

That round of fighting ended when somehow or other they both wound up with the other's sword pressed against their necks.

"You've grown stronger, Edmund," she noted, approvingly.

"Seems I have." His expression changed into a small but contented grin.

It was nearly six and a half hours after initially entering the library with Ammi that Edmund finally left it, miraculously still in one piece.

Susan and Peter found him completely disheveled-ruffled clothes and hair-and panting for breath on the bottom of the staircase shortly thereafter.

"I'm exhausted," moaned Edmund as he peered at their baffled faces from under his half-closed eyelids, leaning his head against the gleaming cherry-wood banister.


	15. Even The Bees Love Her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this chapter is almost painfully derivative, isn't it? Well, still, could be worse for something I wrote almost a decade ago.

Edmund was so tired from illness made worse by dueling in the library that he slept for a night and a day straight without coming remotely close to waking even once. He actually passed out on the stairs shortly after Peter and Susan found him leaning against the banister, and had to be carried to back to his room and put in bed.

"Aslan knows what the devil he was doing behind closed doors for six hours to wear him out so," commented Peter, clicking his tongue as he and his twin sister stood by the boy's bedside. "But he'll be fine. His fever isn't returned; a good long sleep will revive him."

"Peter," said Susan, quietly, as if she were trying not to wake Edmund, though that obviously was quite impossible anyway, "you don't suppose he's... _touched_...in the head? He seems an all right sort of young man, most of the time, but he can and _does_ act so strangely at others."

Peter shrugged and wrote down some important notes in a leather-bound book he kept important information on his most frequent patients in. "Honestly, Su, I can't think which would bother me more; if he is medically classifiable as insane, or if he _isn't_ , and just randomly acts mad naturally."

"The library is in quite a state," Susan added, still more quietly. "Boot-prints on tables, books fallen, chairs looking like they were hurled about... And don't even get me started on the sword display! I never cared for it myself, as you know, but I can't bear to see it look so...so...lopsided. One must have _some_ pride in one's own home."

"I know all that," Peter told her. "I sensed your outrage when you went in and took a peek a moment or so ago." It was more or less just the same as if he had been in there with his sister and seen it all for himself.

"Lion help us, I half-believe we've taken in a near savage," sighed Susan, not unkindly, only as if stating a fact. "Lucy mentioned before that he is only now coming to know about Aslan. Fancy!"

Peter exhaled sharply. "You know, sometimes I don't know if I want to embrace him as if he were a long lost brother or good family friend, or else want to hit him."

"Oh!" cried Susan, raising her voice, but only a little. " _Don't_ ever hit him, Peter. You mustn't! You promised never to fight."

He shook his head. "You don't get bruises and injuries _thinking_ about fighting, Su. Besides, you must have already known what I thought, before I said it."

"I always do." She shivered, still uncomfortable with the turn the conversation's topic had taken.

"Strange thing is," Peter said, almost more to himself than to his twin, "I'm not convinced that, if I ever decided to go ahead and give him a clout, he would really hit me back. He is quite the mystery."

"I never liked mysteries," said Susan, tossing her head back. "They leave me feeling all creepy."

"Well, we'd best just let him sleep now," Peter said, turning to leave the room and grasping Susan's arm, leading her out with him. "He's not harmed, he needs no further medical attention, just rest."

When Edmund finally woke up, muddled and confused, he sat up and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his wrist. How did he get into his room? And why did it appear to be only about ten in the morning perhaps? Hadn't it been at least mid-evening when he left the library and collapsed on the staircase?

Tumnus entered the room that very moment, carrying a tea-tray full of several good things leftover from breakfast, which Edmund had of course missed. "Ah, you're up."

"What happened?" he grunted, rubbing at his eyes once more.

"Let us just say that next time you need to talk to Ammi in private," Tumnus sighed, not without a slight edge to his tone, "you really ought to pick a place without weapons of any kind to tempt the both of you."

Edmund's stomach growled; the breakfast leftovers smelled so _good_. He groaned with pleasure as Tumnus set the tray down on the bed beside him. "Thank you, I'm bloody starving."

"Naturally," said Tumnus in a kind, 'done lecturing you now' sort of voice. "I honestly don't know how you and Ammi can fight it out the way you do without both dropping dead."

"We're gifted," said Edmund, a tad sarcastically, his mouth full of toast and egg.

"You slept a whole day away," Tumnus informed him.

Edmund started choking on a piece of bacon and the faun had to pound him on the back while he coughed it back up into a cloth napkin. "What?"

"Couldn't you tell by the light?" Tumnus asked gently.

"Yes, I suppose I could- _did_ , really." Edmund took in a deep breath. "It's just...I hadn't registered it. A whole day...Jadis will be furious...and now that we can be tracked..." He clenched his jaw. "I don't like the implications."

"And as much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Ed, I think Master Peter's faith in you has waned somewhat, which might make charming his sister a bit more difficult."

"How do you mean?"

"He has his darker suspicions about what you and Ammi were up to in that library," Tumnus informed him.

"But, I-" began Edmund defensively, rather indignant.

The faun held up a hand. "Now, before you get upset, they're just that: suspicions. Nothing more. And I don't think Peter really believes that's the only possible explanation, nor even the most likely. At the same time, I don't think the _first_ thing he thought of when he and Susan found you on the stairs looking like a bum-no offense-was that you'd been engaged in a sword fight."

"Well, truth is stranger than fiction, isn't it?" snapped Edmund, angry that Peter-who he never could stop liking and secretly wishing to make a somewhat decent impression on-would think so little of him.

"Remain calm, Edmund," the faun cautioned him. "Don't become overly-excited. We all need to keep our heads."

"Where's Paddy?"

"Beg pardon?"

"Where's Paddy?" Edmund repeated, looking stricken with concern. "If I've been asleep, who's been taking care of him?" Ammi wouldn't, he knew; and Eustace couldn't even keep a gold fish alive, never-mind a living, breathing one year old child.

"In Raynbi's room," Tumnus said, putting a hand on his shoulder to steady him. "Don't worry, he's fine."

After a few more mouthfuls, Edmund decided to go and see for himself.

He rose up, got dressed, hastily combed his hair and picked what remained of his breakfast out of his teeth, then fast-walked to Raynbi's room.

The door was wide open, so he walked on in.

To his surprise, it wasn't Raynbi in there with Paddy; it was Lucy, slumped into a big, soft chair with the baby on her lap, eyes half-shut and fair, bare head slightly drooped.

"Lu?"

Her eyes opened all the way and she shifted one leg. "Edmund!"

"Morning," he greeted her lamely.

"Good morning," she replied brightly.

"Where's Raynbi?" he asked, taking a few steps forward.

"Out," yawned Lucy. "She's getting more cow's milk and mashed fruits for Paddy to eat."

"Why don't I take him for a bit?" Edmund suggested, reaching down to pluck up the baby.

"All right." She smiled down at the kid. "He really is a darling, Edmund. He kept trying to pull on my hair before, but when I let out a little cry-I couldn't help it, it hurt-he stopped and blinked at me, almost like he was apologizing. It was so sweet."

Edmund chuckled. "Come here, Paddy." He lifted the baby up.

Immediately, Paddy started wailing and kicking his legs furiously.

"Oh, Paddy!" said Lucy, in a soft, soothing voice, almost cooing at him. "It's all right, it's just your father-you like him."

Arching a brow, Edmund mulled over the situation for a second, then held out the baby as if he was about to give him back to Lucy, just to see how the child would react.

Sure enough, the kid stopped crying and looked down-right happy; like he was about to start smiling and laughing, even. But the second he started to slowly drag the child back into his own arms, Paddy started up the water-works all over again, screaming like it was the end of the world.

"You've got to love it," laughed Edmund, mock-bitterly, shaking his head in disbelief. "My son hates me and loves you."

"Oh, he doesn't hate you!" cried Lucy, taking Paddy back into her arms anyway. "He's just cranky." She patted the baby on the back. "You're just tired, aren't you?"

"It's not like he _does_ anything except sleep, poop, and cry," muttered Edmund.

"Father doesn't understand," Lucy cooed to the baby. "No, he doesn't. Aren't you just a tired little thing, sweetie!"

Paddy started giggling and snuggled up as close to her as possible.

"Whoa. You're really good with him," Edmund noticed, deeply impressed, fighting the urge to grin broadly at the endearing image of Lucy continuing to sit in her chair and play with Paddy.

Lucy waved that off modestly and slipped an arm around one side of the baby, supporting his back so he didn't fall out of the chair.

He remembered suddenly how Lucy had once asked him if he'd ever pretended anything growing up. Truthfully, he told her he never had. But right now, looking at Lucy and Paddy together, there was something he wanted to pretend very badly, something wrapped up in an overwhelming emotion he knew he ought to shake off but couldn't.

Part of him was just aching to imagine that Paddy was not only really his in all respects, but _Lucy's_ as well.

Feeling that he might burst with longing for the family he would never have, Edmund knelt down by the opposite side of the chair, leaning on Lucy's other arm.

He wasn't pretending-he wouldn't give in-but this was nice, to sort of just rest like this, safe for the moment, with what would have been unspeakably wonderful if only it were even remotely possible.

Peter appeared in the open doorway, carrying a stack of medical books. He was startled for a moment, because they looked-Lucy, Edmund, and Paddy-so much like a real family, all together like that, those contented little smiles on their faces.

It would have been splendid to look at such a scene in a picture; a young mother and child sitting down, the dark-haired father crouched down beside them adoringly, and the late morning sunlight pouring in so prettily from the window, falling on the mother's fair brown hair and the baby's cream-coloured complexion; but it was rather disconcerting in real life, when the 'mother' in the image was not a mother at all, but, rather, your own baby sister.

In truth, Peter didn't at all like what he saw, for that very reason. Of course he thought Lucy should marry someday, even if she was going to be rather busy being queen of Narnia and all, and naturally he would _love_ to have a niece or nephew to dote on, but to see her with a somewhat questionable young man who already had a baby from a previous relationship...well, it made him extremely uncomfortable. His little Lucy didn't deserve that; to have to pick up the pieces of someone else's messed up, troubled life.

Shuddering, he left the doorway and silently prayed that Lucy wouldn't fall in love with Edmund Maugrim. The last thing he wanted to see was his favorite sister's heart broken.

Some hours later, Edmund was still in Raynbi's room with Paddy, who was sleeping on the bed with a knitted blanket over him and a small pillow under his head. Raynbi and Tumnus were present, too, being quiet so as to avoid waking the child. He wasn't sure where Eustace was-lost again, probably.

Ammi walked in, looking bored, barely even acknowledging her baby lying there at all with the sole exception of being decent enough to speak in a fairly low voice whenever she had something to say.

As Edmund had feared, Raynbi and Ammi had not exactly taken to each other. The usually sweet-tempered Raynbi had what was very nearly a snarl on her face at the sight of Ammi's condescending facial expression; and Ammi narrowed her eyes, having little enough respect for a Calormene in general-much less a former Calormene prostitute.

"Be nice," he mouthed warningly. He knew it was Aravis he had talked to her about during their fight, and that-knowing Ammi as he did-she was bound to hold that technicality against him, but it was still worth a try to keep some level of order between the two scowling, territorial young women.

"Good day, Tramp," said Ammi, in what clearly was _not_ a very nice voice at all, even if was softly spoken.

"How can I possibly have a good day after seeing your face?" mumbled Raynbi, in Calormene.

"She says it's nice to see you, too," Edmund lied quickly.

Raynbi frowned at him. "That is not what I said at all."

He patted her on the shoulder and cocked his head at her pleadingly. "Just forget about it, all right?"

"Very well, Biyda." She gave in.

Edmund sighed and looked out the window at the garden he and Lucy had walked through on his first afternoon at the mansion. So much had happened and changed since that walk. If he were a more imaginative person, perhaps he could have fancied he saw the ghosts of himself and Lucy left over from that day, which felt like ages ago now, still walking that garden path.

Coming up the path, towards the mansion, he noticed Lucy herself, helping a group of incompetent Dufflepud-children carry a couple buckets of water.

She was dressed in a pair of old blue velvet breeches that were not shabby but certainly not new, a pair of thoroughly broken-in leather boots, and a plain white shift of the sort a young man might wear under a tunic. Her collar was not folded back properly, standing up on end with part of her long wavy hair, tied to the side with a piece of brown ribbon, caught in it.

He watched as she stopped, put down the buckets for a moment, and wiped a few beads of sweat off of one eyebrow with the back of her wrist.

It was one thing to find her enchanting, like an angelic being, when she was decked-out in clothes of gold and spinning around laughing, as happy as she was ever likely to be, but it was another entirely to find her, as he did right then, just as attractive-if not more so-dressed in the closest thing she had to working garments, sweaty and slightly disheveled, not to mention probably quite irritated with the Dufflepuds' stupidity making her do most of the work.

There was something about how she looked trudging along with those buckets that made Edmund want to grin and wave at her, if only she would look up and see him in the window.

More than that, it made him want to go down there and help her-she would certainly see him if he did _that_.

So he did; he excused himself from the room and went downstairs and out to the garden. "Need a hand, Lu?"

She smiled as he took one of the buckets from her. "Thanks!"

"No problem." He took the other bucket, too, in spite of her protests that she could carry at least one.

"Paddy is napping again?" Lucy asked, feeling rather idle and unhelpful without something to carry as she trotted alongside Edmund bringing the water into the pantry in the servants' quarters.

"Yeah," he said shortly, not because he was cross, but because had nothing else to say on the subject and found he was having a hard time thinking straight. That it wasn't the weight of the buckets that was having this wild spinning, dizzying effect on his head, nor his recent illness, was abundantly clear, however much he wanted to make himself deny it.

They walked on for a bit more, Lucy finding herself lost in thought. She felt even more hopeless of standing any chance against Ammi than she had when she first saw the girl.

Although she had been too busy to socialize very much with Paddy's mother, who really didn't express any interest whatever in being in the same room as her little son if she didn't have to be, she had observed at a distance that the girl was witty and charming enough, along with being good-looking. If Ammi _did_ start to pay attention to her son, she wouldn't be too bad a mother. And clearly Edmund was still taken with the mother of his child; why else would he disappear completely for six hours shortly after her turning up?

Peter had not told Lucy of the state in which he and Susan found Edmund Maugrim afterward (she was simply informed he had taken ill again, just not as intensely so), but she'd still counted the hours he never thought to come and find her even once during.

Furthermore, Edmund had referred to her this morning, when she finally had to stand up and give Paddy back to him in spite of the child's wailing and thrashing about, as _Aunt_ Lucy.

"Come on, Paddy," he had said wearily, lifting up the baby. "Aunt Lucy's lap is falling asleep."

Obviously, if he liked or loved her at all, it was only as a person loved a sister, or perhaps a cousin (she knew that Eustace was occasionally referred to as 'Uncle Eustace' in Paddy's presence), not in any other way. Certainly not in the way he must have loved Ammi.

It did seem a bit foolish to be reading into such a simple term (it wasn't, after all, Lucy's usual way of thinking in the least), but she didn't know what else to do; she wasn't _used_ to being consistently jealous of another girl.

"Lucy," Edmund began suddenly, breaking into her thoughts. "Do you think..."

"What?" She blinked at him, discovering that they were standing before the slightly ajar pantry door.

His voice had trailed off; he'd jolly nearly lost his nerve. Only, he had her attention now, so he might as well ask. He wanted to spend more time with her. "Do you think we could have another picnic, like we did the day they were getting ready for the bonfire?"

Lucy felt herself blush. "Oh, I...we...we could...it's nearly tea, anyhow, so." She glanced down at her boots. "Unless, I mean... Does Ammi like picnics?"

"She likes them a great deal," Edmund told her.

Lucy's already faint smile was waning. "I'll ask Clara to fix something for you both."

He set the buckets down on the brick-paved steps and grasped her wrist so she couldn't turn and walk away with the wrong impression, as he saw she was very much in danger of doing. "But I don't want to go on a picnic with _her_."

"Who will look after Paddy?" she murmured, talking to her boots some more.

"I'll leave him with Tumnus and Raynbi. He'll be fine."

Lucy considered for a moment, feeling rather dizzy herself. "All right."

So, not too much later, they found themselves sitting down to tea on a blanket in a grassy pasture a little ways off from where the bonfire had been, opening a basket of eatables Clara and Lucy had packed. It consisted largely of leftovers and the sandwiches and little treats they would have had anyway if they'd stayed at the mansion for tea, but it was plentiful and delicious.

It had been dark at the time and it was still daylight now, so Edmund wasn't sure, but he thought the spot they were having their picnic in was the same one he'd wandered off to after refusing to read that fairytale at the bonfire, when Lucy had come and found him and unwittingly revealed that she'd saved his life as a child.

If it wasn't the same place and he was mistaken, it couldn't be, he supposed, too far from it.

There was a buzzing noise coming from a beehive in a nearby tree, and somehow, since it seemed far-off enough not to be a threat, it was almost soothing. He and Lucy had talked a great deal at first, but now they had fallen silent, just listening to the buzzing, rhythmic hum of those bees.

The majority of the food and drink was gone, and the air felt so still and lazy that Lucy had the strangest urge to sprawl out like a cat in the low-hanging sun. She decided against it, however, and tucked her feet under her, gazing up at the blue sky.

What a beautiful day this is, she thought dreamily.

Edmund's thoughts were along the same line, more or less. This was a warm, glorious day he would want to remember for ever, if only it could last that long and keep them both eternally safe from harm in this sunny pasture. Lucy looked so at peace; she still wore the same old breeches and shift, looking almost gipsy-like with her hair now hanging all loose, and she had not yet realized her collar remained standing up.

In this silence, Edmund half-wanted to reach over and fold it down for her himself, lightly running the tips of his fingers along her neckline, just to see what it would be like, but he knew that would probably not be entirely appropriate and sat on his hands until they went slightly numb to keep himself from trying it.

Suddenly, without much warning, Edmund felt jittery and unable to keep still, like there were thousands of little ants running up and down his arms, and the back of his neck felt sore from the inside out.

It wasn't any feelings for Lucy that caused these particular jitters and aches, however; it was the fact that he hadn't chewed any Toffee-Leaves that day. Somehow, distracted by everything, he had plain forgot to. Combined with the fact that he hadn't been able to chew any while he was sleeping off his illness, he had gone a bit too long without.

Whenever he arrived back at the mansion, he would simply take the leaves out and chew a few and these uncomfortable feelings would stop. In spite of his withdrawal pangs, he didn't see any reason to cut his time with Lucy short. Sometimes it helped dull the withdrawal for an hour or so if he ate something really sticky sweet, like honey.

As luck would have it, he remembered there being a jar of honey in the basket; it had been a quarter full, and he and Lucy had both had it on their toast.

Reaching into the basket, however, he felt his face drop considerably when he pulled out an empty jar with barely a lick's worth of honey left in it.

Great; just great, he thought, a touch grouchily.

Lucy noticed his disappointed expression and, smiling as if she knew something he did not, took the empty jar out of his hands. "Wait here, don't move."

Edmund blinked at her as she stood up. "What are you going to do?"

"Wait and see," Lucy told him, unscrewing the lid of the jar and leaving it behind on the blanket.

He watched incredulously as Lucy took several long, silent strides in the direction of the tree the beehive was located in.

"Lucy!" he called after her, concerned. "You're going to get stung."

Lucy turned round half-way and put her finger to her lips, signaling for him to be quiet.

" _Lucy_ ," Edmund hissed, more quietly.

To his utter amazement, not only did Lucy walk right amongst the swarm of bees, she stuck her hand right into their hive as smoothly and easily as she would have stuck it into any of the pantry cupboards back at the mansion.

He winced involuntarily. How desperately he hoped those were _Talking_ bees and would not harm her! Then again, Edmund couldn't remember if there even _were_ any talking bees, feeling a wave of fear and desperation because he could do nothing-lest he startle the bees and make it worse-to help her if she got into trouble. The irony of the whole situation was beyond sickening. Not only could he not protect Lucy from the witch or himself, but he couldn't even protect her from a bunch of pathetic insects! Brilliant.

Any number of those big black bees were on Lucy's shoulders now. It didn't look like any of them had stung her yet, but it could be just a matter of time.

Ever so slowly, Lucy brought her hand out of the hive, clutching a dripping gold honeycomb, and slid it into the empty glass jar.

"I don't believe it," murmured Edmund to himself shakily, watching as the bees slowly began flying off of her shoulders one by one the further away she got from the tree. "Even the bees love her!"

By the time she returned to their blanket, all of the bees were off of her and there wasn't the slightest sign of a single sting on any visible part of her skin. "Your honey, Edmund Maugrim." She held out the jar to him, beaming.

Edmund gaped at her, almost fearfully. "You really didn't have to do that."

Lucy shrugged, not quite understanding the danger he'd thought she was in. "I wanted to."

He shook his head, forgetting to take the jar from her still out-stretched hand.

Her cheerful expression dimmed. "Edmund, I've been doing that since I was little; I've never been stung, I promise," Lucy swore, her eyes wide with sincerity. "Peter taught me. Susan couldn't learn to do it, she was too scared, and she said she hated it when Peter did it, because she didn't like to sense all those bees landing on her, so he taught me instead."

Edmund swallowed hard and took the jar from her, not looking her in the eye.

"I'm sorry I frightened you," Lucy said, settling down beside him on the blanket.

Sticking a finger in the jar and bringing it to his mouth, Edmund smiled at her. "It's very good."

"Fresh too," Lucy teased.

"So I heard," he laughed, breaking a piece of the honeycomb off and pulling it out of the jar.

"I'll try a bit, Ed."

Edmund brought the honeycomb piece up to her lips as if it were a sliver of fruit. "Oh, Lucy," he murmured, looking wistful and dejected.

"What happened?" Lucy wanted to know, staring at his crestfallen face anxiously. "Is something wrong?"

"Nothing," he whispered. But of course that wasn't true. All he could think of was how he ever could go through with betraying her.

The last thing he wanted was to give the girl every creature in Narnia was completely in love with, the girl who would make a wonderful queen someday, to the White Witch. Not even his freedom seemed worth it; and if it were only his own in question, he might have confessed right then and there, let the witch come for him and kill him as punishment, but it wasn't so simple. Tumnus, Ammi, and Eustace...What about them? Protecting Lucy would be betraying them, destroying _their_ chances to be free, too. And even if he thought it was worth the risk, how was he to know the witch wouldn't just get another traitor to do the job? Or angrily take Lucy herself, dragging her back to Charn by her hair if need be, after killing him and the other disobedient traitors?

This wasn't what he wanted. He wanted protect her. He wanted to _marry_ her, if she would have him. And not in the same way he had wanted to marry Ammi; if _Lucy_ had turned him down even half as many times as Ammi had, he definitely would have been heartbroken. But, of course, that was rot; Lucy deserved much better than _him_. And, besides, she wasn't going to end up with anyone at all; she was going to Jadis, like the other demistars had.

"You look..." She paused; she had been about to say 'awful', which wasn't untrue (she wondered, in fact, if he was taking sick again), but her voice trailed off. "Sad," Lucy finally managed.

"I'm fine," Edmund lied. "Really."

"Do you want to walk around the village?"

He shook his head. "I think perhaps it's time we went home actually, Lu."

"But why?" Lucy wanted to know, wiping her sticky mouth clean with the back of her sleeve. "Aren't you feeling better?"

There were a million perfectly good reasons Edmund could have given. The most practical, perhaps, would have been that he needed to get back to Paddy; she would have understood that.

But, instead, the reason that came out of his mouth was about as pathetic as they come. "It will be getting dark soon."

Lucy smiled unsurely. "I'm not afraid of the dark, Edmund."

Edmund felt like throwing up all of the delightful teatime meal he'd had; because it occurred to him that that was exactly, word-for-word, what Lucy had said to him in one of his nightmares. It was the one where they'd been in the graveyard together, and the demistar girls' names had all shown up on the previously unreadable tombstones.

"You should be," was all he said, as darkly and softly as in his nightmare, helping her clean up.

His dark, unreachable mood prevailed until they found themselves back by the staircase inside of the mansion, the picnic things left for Clara to take into the kitchen later, and Lucy, about to go up to her room, said, "I will never forget this day, Edmund Maugrim."

Knowing it was a bad idea but finding himself doing so anyway, Edmund reached out for her, slipping an arm around her waist, and pulled her to him.

"Edmund..." she said, her tone a nervous half-giggle. "What are you doing?"

"I'll let you know when I figure that out," he whispered.

The next thing he was aware of, he had kissed her on the mouth twice and she had, in turn, slipped her arms around his neck, kissing him back.

"By the Lion!" exclaimed a familiar voice that took Edmund's tired and otherwise occupied brain about three seconds longer than usual to place. "What's all this then?"

Lucy, blushing like crazy, let go of Edmund. "Peter! We were...uh...we just got back."

"Yes, I know," said her ever protective older brother, looking very sternly at Edmund.

"So, how are things at the clinic, Pete?" Edmund blurted, unable to think of anything better to say.

"Don't call me Pete." Peter's stern look hardened into an out-right glare. "Lucy, go up to your room. I want to talk to Mr. Maugrim here alone."

"Peter," tried Lucy.

"Lucy, go!"

A little wave of indignation at jolly nearly always being sent to her room-or out of a room-when something important was happening, even it concerned her directly ( _she'd_ kissed _him_ , too!), washed over her, and Lucy did something she very rarely was capable of; she stomped all the way up the stairs, making her annoyance apparent.

"Just what exactly do you think you were doing with my sister, Edmund?" Peter demanded the second Lucy was gone.

The obvious, literal answer was 'kissing her', but Edmund knew better than to say that, so he shrugged his shoulders.

"I've decided to more or less trust you as a friend of the family-as Lucy's friend," Peter told him flatly, shaking his head. "But I don't want to see her hurt."

Edmund wished he could say he would never do anything to hurt her, but considering he was a traitor, that wasn't the truth. In fact, the only thing he could honestly say was, "Neither do I."

"She's only fifteen years old, and she has never had a suitor," Peter reminded him. "She has enough on her shoulders with the knowledge that once King Frank leaves the throne, she has to take it up. The last thing she needs is you stirring up her emotions like that."

Edmund blinked at him.

"You have a _son_ ," Peter cried, aghast, tossing his hands in the air in frustration. "You need to understand she isn't ready to be a mother or a wife, Lucy's way too young for that. And if marrying her wasn't what was on your mind, then that's even _worse_! I've chosen to believe that, as a young person yourself, your emotions get the better of you, too. To think otherwise, Edmund, would be to think so badly of you I don't believe I could stand it!"

"What do you want from me, Peter?" Edmund felt at a loss; nothing made sense anymore.

"I want you to understand where I'm coming from," he said wearily, swallowing hard. "That's what I want."

"I do," Edmund assured him.

His face relaxing a little, Peter said, "Then what I'm going to tell you next should fall under that understanding as well." He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "I don't want you to ever put your hands on my sister again. If I find out you're still pursuing a romantic relationship with her, I will personally have you turned out of this mansion for good." He wiped at his eyes; this wasn't easy for him. "I'm sorry, Edmund. That's just the way it's got to be."

"Peter," said Edmund, dejectedly cracking his knuckles against the side of the banister. "There is one thing you can take my word for."

"And what is that?"

"One day I will walk out those doors for the last time-" Edmund pointed over Peter's shoulder to the doors in the entryway; "-and I won't be coming back. And when that time comes, you aren't going to have to lift a finger; I'll show myself out."


	16. The Rise and Fall of the Toffee Leaves

Ammi sighed loudly and kicked the mattress on Edmund's bed; not that it made much of an impression, considering it was so well-stuffed and thick, and the bed itself was too large for it to vibrate properly. It was too bad he wasn't sleeping in a hammock she could just turn over and knock him out of, waking him up by default.

But no, as it was, he continued to sleep soundly, even snoring a little, not stirring at all.

She coughed pointedly. "Ahem."

Nothing.

She coughed more pointedly. "A-ahem!"

More nothing.

"Wake up, Ed!" she finally shouted, leaning so that her mouth was in line with his ear.

He rolled over and would have fallen off the other side of the bed if it hadn't been so wide. "What? Where?" he blurted, sitting up and rubbing the ear she'd shouted in.

"About bloody time you got up," Ammi grumbled, glowering down at him.

"You know what, Ammi?" Edmund grouched, blinking the sleepys out of his eyes. "You just reminded me why I'm not a morning person!" He grabbed a pillow and pressed it against his face, groaning exaggeratedly into it.

Ammi walked over to where she had set a cloth-covered tray down upon entering the room. "Does this help?" She lifted the cloth and waved at the food under it so that the smell wafted over to the general direction of Edmund's bed.

He sat up and put the pillow down by his side. "Yeah, actually, it does, a little." Yawning, he added, "Did I miss breakfast again?" Going by the sunlight, it didn't seem that late, and he didn't really feel as well rested as he ought to if he'd over-slept.

"No," said Ammi, rolling her eyes. "Of course not. They haven't even started breakfast yet. I got this food from the kitchen when Clara set it down to cool."

Edmund noticed that Ammi wasn't even properly dressed yet; she was still in her night-clothes and black-and-gray dressing-gown, her hair loose and full of unbrushed, messy auburn curls.

"You're not having breakfast with the others today," Ammi announced, setting the tray down on the bed and sitting cross-legged on it herself.

"Did I forget my own birthday again?" Edmund wanted to know. Squinting at her tight expression, he wondered aloud, "Or _yours_?"

"Here." She thrust an envelope at his stomach.

"Why are you being so mean to me?" Edmund said sardonically, pouting at her melodramatically. "And on my birthday, no less."

"It's not your birthday!" she snapped, tossing a cluster of curls over one shoulder irritably.

"Prove it." He winked at her, a bit too light-heartedly for her level of anxiety. "For all we know, it _could_ be." Normally, the fact that he didn't even know for sure which day he was born on bothered him, but every once in a while he chose to force himself to joke about it-preferably around Ammi, who was always fun to get a reaction out of by doing so at the most inappropriate moments.

"Edmund, just read the blasted letter before I give you a clout." She picked a lemon wedge off of the tray and nibbled at it, more to steady her nerves than because she was trying to fill her stomach.

Bringing the envelope to his face to read it, Edmund saw that it was covered in postmarks from Galma and suddenly felt the room spin. It was happening. They were being tracked-again.

Unless it was just a letter from the foster family that had abandoned Paddy on the Ramandus' doorstep, hopefully explaining why in Aslan's name they'd done such a thing in the first place.

"It's not about Paddy," Ammi informed him shortly.

Edmund noticed that the envelope was ripped open on the side (and not very neatly, either). "Ammi! Why did you open my mail?"

"I was bored," she grunted, putting the lemon wedge back down on the tray.

Muttering under his breath, Edmund pulled the letter out of the tattered envelope and unfolded it, swallowing hard as he took in its contents.

Really, it wasn't accurate to call it a 'letter', per-say, not nearly long enough for that; it was more of a note. A threatening note, to be exact. Or, if not threatening, exactly, then at least it was clear that it was meant to be intimidating, to scare him.

Edmund cleared his throat and read the contents of the letter aloud. " _I know you had something to do with Gwendolen's disappearance, you Toffee-Leaf addict bastard_." He winced. Gwendolen was the last half-blood star he'd betrayed and led to Jadis. "Well," he managed at last, swallowing hard. "That is a bit steep."

"You _could_ have just read it silently to yourself," Ammi barked, glancing nervously over her shoulders as if she expected someone to be eavesdropping on them via the door or the window.

"Ammi, we're not on the first floor," Edmund reminded her. "How the devil would someone be at the window?"

"There are two Griffin Riders staying here," she pointed out cautiously.

"I think Polly and Aravis have better things to do than fly by my window first thing in the morning," he pointed out, rolling his eyes.

"Never hurts to be on your guard," Ammi retorted. Gesturing at the letter in his hand, she added, "Clearly you weren't. And now look!"

Edmund scowled. "Don't blame this on me!" Lowering his voice a great deal, he went on, " _Jadis_ is the one who's stopped blocking our path from the majority of mortal eyes."

"She _what_?" gasped Ammi, her eyes widening considerably. "When was anybody planning on telling me?"

"Ammi," said Edmund, making his voice very serious and taking one of her hands in his. "I have to tell you something."

"What now?"

"The witch has stopped making us untraceable." He spoke gravely, but a touch patronizingly as well. "And we're being-have been-tracked by somebody-possibly two somebodies, if you count the foster family-from Galma."

She pulled her hand away from his and hit him on the upper arm. "Idiot! It's too late to tell me _now_."

"It would have been too late to tell you if I'd gone and informed you first thing you got here." He rubbed the arm she'd hit. "That is going to leave a mark, Princess."

Ammi fought against the urge to smile at his old childhood nickname for her; he hadn't called her that in years, but growing up had called her that frequently, sometimes as a term of semi-endearment, teasingly, other times as a near insult when he was mad at her. She very well might be a princess, or near enough to it, and that was what was most ironic about the nickname, as Jadis had stolen her away from an aristocratic family of some kind.

"There's no return address," Ammi said grimly.

"No joke!" scoffed Edmund. "Who ever heard of a person who _signed_ a threatening note? That's like standing in the middle of a public square shouting, 'have me killed off before I rat you out to someone more dangerous'!"

"Point duly noted."

Sighing, Edmund got up and pulled his small leather bag of Toffee-Leaves out from under the bed. It wasn't the best hiding place he'd come up with during his stay in this room, but he had been overtired lately, from illness and anxiety-staying up for hours, just thinking of Lucy-and, as of last night, Peter's order for him to stay away from Lucy, and that hadn't had the best effect on his mental capabilities.

"So it's true," said Ammi, watching as he opened the bag and pulled a leaf out and popped it into his mouth.

"What's true?" Edmund asked, climbing back up onto the bed.

"What the note said, about you being an addict."

"You know I chew them sometimes," said Edmund offhandedly. "I think you knew before Tumnus did. Golly, you're the one who had to bail me out that time in Archenland, don't you remember?"

"You're addicted, aren't you?" she pressed.

"Pshaw," he groused. "I can stop anytime I want to."

"How about now?" she challenged, reaching for the bag. "This very second. Before you end up being apprehended again."

He snatched it up before she could. "I said anytime _I_ want to," he growled.

Ammi wrinkled her nose. "Mind if I have a chew?" she asked, curious to see what his reaction would be.

"Go ahead." Edmund knew he could get more.

"Unbelievable," huffed Ammi, clearly none too pleased with his response. "The same man who wanted to marry me, is willing to let me put that rubbish in my body."

For some reason, Edmund found himself remembering how swiftly he had made sure Lucy didn't take so much as a single sip of that awful tea laced with Toffee-Leaves that night they snuck into the theater. His own unwitting twinge of blatant favoritism made him cross, mingling with the cloudy effect the leaves were already having on his mind, and he barked, "This from a girl who was going to take an herb to abort her unborn child!"

Ammi's eyes flashed. She had been scared to death of Jadis finding out, and had been about to do what seemed like the only solution at the time. She hadn't wanted the child, and she knew Jadis didn't want a baby howling through the ice castle, either. Edmund had not yet lied for her at that point, and the herb was attainable since it came from one of the precious few plants that actually grew in a place as barren as Charn. Of course, Edmund came in and stopped her, and deep down she was glad he did-though she still grudged him for ripping her own personal choice out of her hands and crushing it under his boot.

Furious that he had brought it up again, Ammi raised her hand to smack him across the face.

Edmund saw it coming in spite of his currently somewhat dulled reflexes and grasped her wrist. "No, don't! I only let you hit me when I deserve it. You can't hit me for that."

" _Let_ me hit you?" she exclaimed incredulously. "You lie."

He let go of her wrist and she drew it back to herself hastily, glowering at him. "I saved Paddy's life." Edmund closed his eyes and popped another leaf into his mouth. "Would you really punish me for that?"

"It was my body," she murmured.

"No," he said slowly, his words slurring a little. "It was _his_."

"My choice!" she said, in a louder tone.

"What about him? Where was _his_ choice?" demanded Edmund, his words slurring still because of the effect of the Toffee-Leaves, but the tone under them as stern and lucid as ever.

"He wasn't wanted." Ammi didn't feel too good saying that, but she didn't know what else to say, probably because she knew perfectly well Edmund was in the right.

"Neither was I," said Edmund, opening his distant brown eyes half-way and looking at her from under his drooping lids with the expression of a mistreated dog who has been kicked in the gut by its cruel owner one too many times.

This wasn't the first time they'd had this conversation, but it was the first time he had responded with that rebuttal. Those painful words froze of all of Ammi's already thin arguments on her lips, not letting them pass. "Ed, I'm sorry."

"I don't want your pity, Ammi," he murmured darkly, attempting to shake his head but actually just jerking it floppily from side to side. "I don't want your pity, none of it. You keep it for a rainy day."

"Edmund-" she tried.

"I really don't want to hear it," he mumbled.

What would Ammi know about it, anyway? Her parents probably would have given anything to have her back when she was taken by servants of the White Witch. Whereas Edmund's mother, if she even knew what had happened to him (which was doubtful enough), didn't even care; the thought that she lost any sleep over the abduction of a son she already abandoned anyway was out-right laughable. Even Eustace's overly progressive, absent-minded folks-Edmund's aunt and uncle-cared about, even mourned over, the lost of their only son, but parental concern was yet another luxury in life Edmund had not been given. He had no one to love him; and no matter how many demistars he betrayed, everyone else in the world would always have the semi-comfort of knowing his traitorous ways were to some extent derived from his own greater pain.

"Chewing those leaves won't change the way things are, you know." Ammi stuck out her chin.

"Perhaps not, but they're just about the only thing keeping me from pulling a sword on you right now," Edmund snipped, leaning back on the pillows. "So I would think you would be glad enough of them."

"I'd rather fight you than see you like this," Ammi said. "You _know_ that."

"We," he said hollowly, taking a deep, heavy breath, his words slow and forced, "have to lead a girl to Jadis, and we don't have enough time because we're being tracked. Our entire freedom and continuing existence...depends...on...this...and this is how I can deal with that. Would you rather I fell completely apart?"

"If it's so hard," she retorted testily, "then why did you make it more difficult by telling everyone here Paddy was yours?"

"Are we really having _this_ conversation?" Edmund snorted disbelievingly and popped another leaf into his mouth, chewing more forcefully.

"You can lie about what you do, and you can lie about why you're here, but you can't lie about a kid who isn't even...?" Her voice trailed off. "There's something seriously wrong with you, Edmund; you need help."

"Ammi, I didn't kill anyone, I just claimed the blasted child!" He was feeling a buzz at the back of his head from the Toffee-Leaves. Why was he so mad at Ammi again? _Was_ he mad at Ammi? It had only been a half-second since he shouted at her (something to do with Paddy, he thought) and he already couldn't recall. The room was spinning and he felt as if he were looking at it from underwater, through various ripples.

Ammi stood up, looking disgusted, and made her way to the door, lifting the latch. "Goodbye Edmund, I'll see you the effects wear off." She paused for a moment and looked back over her shoulder at his hazy-eyed, sprawled out figure on the bed. "Oh, and keep chewing those bloody Toffee-Leaves! There's a good chance you'll end up killing _yourself_!" Furious, she swung the door open, preparing to storm out of it.

Her grand dramatic exit was impeded, however, by a fair-headed girlish figure in an ultramarine tunic, bending down near the threshold of the door, clutching a jar of honey with a little note tied to it by a piece of plain brown string.

This was, of course, Lucy P. Ramandu. She had been preparing to leave the jar and the note for Edmund when she heard Ammi's voice from the other side of the door, shouting out that last sentence. She hadn't heard anything else in the conversation; she hadn't even known that Ammi was in there to begin with before she screamed about Edmund chewing Toffee-Leaves.

But, regardless, she couldn't believe it. How could someone like Edmund take in Toffee-Leaves? Only bums who lived in shelters made out of old dustbins stacked on top of one another in alleyways were low enough to chew Toffee-Leaves; how could a gentleman like Edmund possibly... Then she suddenly remembered how he had known about the tea laced with Toffee-Leaves and warned her not to drink it. So _this_ was how he knew!

It was a disgusting habit, but more than revulsion, Lucy felt keen pity for Edmund; pity that made her eyes fill up with tears. Was he _addicted_? Had he been dealing with this problem alone the whole time he'd been living in her father's mansion? And what about before that?

Strangely enough, Lucy also felt a strange but passing desire to blame Ammi for this, for not helping him when she was obviously so near. But, clearly, that fury was misplaced, extreme, and not completely fair. After all, Ammi had sounded as though she was quite upset that he chewed the Toffee-Leaves. Perhaps she _had_ tried to make him stop before; Lucy didn't know Ammi well enough to be sure she hadn't.

"Edmund?" Lucy stood up and looked passed Ammi into the room.

"Hmm?" he murmured, too out of it to give her a proper response. But he must have recognized her voice a second later and registered it in his mind, because he suddenly became agitated and almost swallowed the Toffee-Leaves by accident, coughing them back up and gagging uncontrollably.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. What was he _doing_ to himself? How _could_ he?

As if magically drawn there by Lucy's unhappiness, Peter suddenly appeared at his little sister's side, looking worried and cross. He noticed what Lucy hadn't bothered to, too overwhelmed by the knowledge that Edmund was ruining his body by purposefully putting toxic leaves into his mouth; he noticed that Ammi was still in her night-clothes, as was Edmund.

"What is going on here?" he demanded, glancing over at Lucy's tear-stained face. Why was Lucy crying and standing outside of Mr. Maugrim's door instead of going to breakfast?

"Peter," Lucy wept, scooting the jar of honey to the left of the door with the side of her foot so that her doctor brother wouldn't trip over it on his way in, "Edmund's very sick, we have to help him."

At first, Peter merely thought that Edmund had taken another illness similar to the last couple of times he'd fallen sick, which would give a more innocent reason for Ammi to be in his room attired as she was. But then he realized that it was closer, in some ways, to an illness of mind than one of the body. Yes, the toxins would no doubt have made him physically unwell, but the addiction, the worst part for a young-otherwise fairly strong-person of Edmund's age, was what the real issue here seemed to be.

Unlike Lucy, Peter _did_ feel out-right angry with him. As a physician he had occasionally treated patients with Toffee-Leaf addictions in the past, and frankly he had very little respect for those sorts of persons. He took care of them, naturally, as an honest physician should, but deep down he loathed every minute of it; he hated to think of what they were doing to themselves and how little they appeared to care, even. Mixed with the fact that he had seen this same young man kiss his sister the day before, he felt the most intense urge to literally smack some sense into him. However, he was too much of a professional to take out his rage on a weak patient who couldn't strike back, which was what Edmund happened to be at the moment. Besides, Susan would have been furious with him for breaking his promise and instigating violence, and he really didn't feel like listening to one of her high-pitched scoldings before he'd even had any breakfast.

So he gritted his teeth and got to work. First he confiscated the bag of remaining Toffee-Leaves. Edmund was too out of it to notice straight off, but Peter figured the loss would register soon enough.

"By Aslan, these are strong!" Peter waved his hand in front of his nose and closed the bag.

Lucy was still crying.

"Lu, don't cry anymore," her brother begged. "I can't concentrate on helping him with you carrying on so."

Lucy sniffled and swallowed at a lump in her throat. She had not been this upset since she saw the whip-marks all over Edmund's bare back the day of the bonfire. For Peter's sake, though, she could hold back a bit. And perhaps she was also a little ashamed to be crying like a baby in front of Ammi, who seemed so reserved and calm about the matter.

It was to Ammi, in fact, that Peter handed the leather bag of Toffee-Leaves. "Can I trust you to dispose of this properly?"

Ammi nodded. "I could just burn it." She glanced over at the fireplace.

"No," Peter warned her. "The smell won't be good for him. We're trying to get the leaves _out_ of his system, not fill the room with toxic smoke from them."

"I'll throw it out with the rest of the rubbish, then." She left the room, taking the bag with her.

"Watch him, Lu." Peter whispered into his little sister's ear. "I'm going to get something to help break up the toxins already in him. Make sure that if he comes back to his senses, he doesn't leave this room." The last thing he wanted was Edmund sneaking off and going through the trash to find the leaves Ammi was hopefully throwing away as they spoke.

Lucy stayed obediently; she didn't need to be asked twice. Could the boy who had been so worried when she'd stuck her hand into the beehive yesterday, who kissed her by the staircase, really be in this empty shell of a body, slumped across the bed? He barely recognized her, though it seemed like there was some emotion trying to break out of his leaf-induced apathy at the moments when he did; he barely even reacted when she held his hand.

After a bit, he finally seemed to register her touch and squeezed her hand gently before his grip loosened and he appeared to be going away again without even having to physically leave her side. Although she was trying to be strong, a few more tears escaped when he did that.

Peter returned and held Edmund's limp body up straight while Lucy, willing her shaking hands to steady themselves so that she could help him, forced him to drink something that smelled like peppermint.

After that came the hardest part. Peter ordered Lucy to leave and not come back into the room at all. "When he wakes up, he's going to be locked in, and even if he screams and pounds on the door, I don't want you opening it. Do you understand?"

"But why?" asked Lucy, having some trouble envisioning the now dozing Edmund doing any screaming or pounding anytime soon.

"As the toxins begin to leave his system, his body is going to want to replace them, at first," Peter explained patiently, putting a hand on his sister's shoulder. "He has to stay in here until it's over. We'll know when it happens, trust me. Ten to one he'll be so exhausted by then that he isn't going to have the energy to keeping screaming at a door."

"I want to come back," Lucy insisted, reluctantly standing up, "the second he's better."

"Lu," sighed Peter, "I'm sorry you had to see something like this."

Lucy bit her lower lip and looked down at her feet.

"This is why we have to be careful when we choose our friends," Peter added weakly, feeling like a hypocrite for liking Edmund himself regardless of his apprehensions. "We never know what certain people are really like."

Lucy released her lower lip now, ready to stay something plain and clear. "I _do_ know what he's like, Peter. And it isn't _this_." She gestured with her wrist over at the bed, remembering the Edmund who had bought her the green cloak, the Edmund who broke the king-piece and climbed out a window. "I know him very well. I-" She stopped, catching herself almost about to say, "I love him." The only reason she didn't was because she thought she would rather not say it to her _brother_ first instead of him.

When Edmund woke up about three hours later, he had a headache and felt a throbbing pain in his jaw. And though he searched the room top to bottom for the bag of Toffee-Leaves, falling down several times because of jitters in his legs, he didn't find so much as a single leaf.

The door was locked and he was alone.

However many times he pounded on the door, the only person who answered-and this was only the first couple of times, because _nobody_ answered at all after that-was Eustace.

"I'm sorry, Cousin, but Peter says you can't come out yet," he said, not actually _sounding_ particularly sorry. "This does hurt me inside."

"You let me out of this room right now before I hurt you _outside_!" Edmund had shouted, slamming the useless latch up and down several times in quick succession, trying to rattle his cousin up a bit.

After a while, he felt his body settle into an uncomfortably natural calm, and he wadded wearily back to the bed, tucking himself in under the covers as if he were a small child.

He cried into his pillows quite a bit, as his senses of reason and dignity started to come back and he realized how stupid he was being.

Chewing Toffee-Leaves first thing in the morning hadn't been the best idea he'd ever had, much less acted on. The effects were wearing off, and all he could think about was that threatening note from Galma. It had shaken him up more than he wanted to let on. Not so much because he was being tracked as it was that he felt-especially after what just happened-that whoever wrote it was _right_. He _was_ a bastard, had been from the second he was conceived and then born nine months later. He _did_ have a problem with Toffee-Leaves. And now Lucy, sweet innocent Lucy who thought so undeservedly highly of him, knew about it.

"She must hate me," Edmund mumbled to himself, finally sitting up in bed he didn't know how much later.

The sun was lower in the sky, causing orange-red light to stream in-between the gap in the curtains and into his room.

That was right; he had a window! Why, when he was ranting like a lunatic, had he never thought of breaking the bloody window? It would have been so simple! Oh, well. It was too late now, and honestly he was glad he hadn't thought of it.

Slowly, he parted the curtains and looked out. He thought he could hear the strained sound of shouting coming from outside.

Sure enough, there were some very disreputable men in ragged capes and cloaks 'repaired' with several messy patches, carrying sacks of what had to be a mix of stolen goods for selling on the black market and Toffee-Leaves.

When Edmund hadn't come to see them that day, as he had been planning to, so he could get more, they came looking for him. He hadn't told them he lived at Coriakin's mansion, but they must have found out on their own.

And there, pitted against them, was Lucy, holding a bow and arrow borrowed from Susan. She appeared to be telling them to go away, pulling back on the bowstring threateningly.

One of the men unsheathed a long, well-sharpened steel knife almost as big as a dwarf-sword, and Edmund was ready to break the window and jump down there and twist that monster's wrist right off for even _thinking_ about pulling a knife on Lucy P. Ramandu on her own property where those ruffians had no right to trespass, but that turned out to be unnecessary, since Alexander appeared directly behind Lucy, also carrying a bow and quiver of arrows.

A few _twang_ s filled the air as Alexander fired off a couple of warning arrows over the men's heads.

The cowards took off running down the hill.

Lucy scowled in the direction of their footprints and nodded triumphantly to herself. Alexander gave her shoulders a light squeeze.

Behind him, Edmund heard the lock on the other side of his door click open. He walked over and lifted the latch.

There was nobody there, but the jar of honey Lucy had left originally was still there, to the left of the door. He knew what it meant; no one else except for Lucy would have thought to leave him a jar of honey.

She didn't hate him, even now.

"Aslan bless you, Lu," he said softly, smiling as he bent down and picked up the jar.


	17. Harpsichords & Haircuts

The sound of Polly the Griffin Rider playing the harpsichord filled the room. Paddy crawled from Edmund's lap onto Lucy's, clapping his little pudgy hands together. Edmund laughed and winked at her.

Tumnus, who was seated with Susan, Perry, and Peter across from the sofa Edmund, Lucy, Paddy, and Aravis were on, smiled when Clara came in with a Dufflepud to light the fireplace (the Dufflepuds couldn't do anything that involved fire without Clara's supervision).

After using a tinderbox, a piece of old newspaper, and some carefully maneuvered tongs to get the fire started, the lady faun allowed the Dufflepud to poke at it with the silver-plated poker for a bit and stood with her hands behind her back to listen to the rest of Polly's performance.

As the golden-haired Griffin Rider finished the merry-slightly nasal, but pleasantly so-tune and pulled her dainty, long-fingered hands back from the two black-and-white keyboards, she was given a polite applause from everyone except Eustace, who was falling asleep on a rug in the corner, his head leaning sideways against the wall.

"She's very good," noted Tumnus, looking at Clara but gesturing with his chin in Polly's direction.

"That she is," Clara agreed in a low whisper. "She was very well-taught. Her music tutor was Digory Kirke, who also happens to be an under-professor of Narnian History and Classic Literature as well. Remarkably, he's only Polly's senior by six or seven years at best. She hasn't seen him since his mother fell ill last year and he had to give up teaching, though. Poor dear, I know she misses him."

A loud snore came from Eustace, which caused the Dufflepud to drop the hot poker and exclaim, pointing excitedly at the corner, "Look, a pig!"

Edmund put his hand to his mouth, trying not to burst out into hysterics over the Dufflepud's reaction. Lucy, too, had to struggle against a mad giggle.

Peter smiled and coughed to dislodge some imaginary phlegm from his throat.

Polly didn't react at all, but thought it served the little brat right, being called that, for falling asleep in the middle of her performance.

Clara left Tumnus and briskly hustled the loud-mouthed Dufflepud out of the room. Her opinion of Mr. Maugrim's cousin might not have been the highest, but as a servant in a respectable home, she knew it was not good manners for a guest-any guest-to be insulted and wished the Dufflepuds would pick up the basics of decorum so they would be a little less tiresome. At least Eustace was soundly asleep and hadn't heard. The best part about leaving the room, though, was that once she was finally alone, the faun maidservant could laugh freely all she liked.

Aravis asked Polly to play something else on the harpsichord, and she was about to comply when Ammi strolled into the bright, fashionable entertainment room, carrying what looked like a dead game hen in her arms.

Edmund grimaced. As was her way, Ammi didn't have a single crease in her clothes, her brown dress hadn't a single wrinkle or unintentional pleat in it, but the light trace of mud on the hem gave away that she'd been poaching on Coriakin's land.

Well, that and the fact that she had a dead bird in her arms.

That better not have been a _talking_ game hen, Edmund thought peevishly, but doubted it; the animal was on the small side to be a talking beast. Most talking animals he'd seen or spoken to were a little larger than their dumb cousins. Regardless, it was a domestic bird, and not Ammi's for the taking; they were Coriakin's hens.

Maybe he should have been paying more attention to his unstable childhood companion's recent activities, but Edmund had had his mind on other things the last couple of days.

For one, he was getting over his Toffee-Leaf addiction, still occasionally having the urge to put those toxins back into his body, feeling immensely grateful for Peter's careful eye on him, the only drawback of which was that it meant he couldn't be as close to Lucy as he wanted.

Under Peter's stern watch, he felt stifled and confused. Would Peter be angry if he held his sister's hand, or perhaps looked at her for too long with sheep eyes, and throw him out of the mansion? Or did the fact that he was now one of Peter's more important patients, not even close to fully recovered yet, give him immunity from the former threat? And if so, did he even want it? What was the point of being close to Lucy, of caring for her, if he knew he was only going to have to lead her to Jadis and lose her for ever anyway?

"Ammi," he said, standing up and looking annoyed. "Give me the bird."

Displeased with his tone, she snapped, "You're really making me _want_ to, Ed, but then I'd have to drop the game hen."

Catching on, Peter had to choke back a laugh in spite of himself, and Susan, knowing exactly why he was laughing, mentally ordered him not to be such an ass, that it wasn't funny when somebody was being deliberately vulgar. If Ammi _must_ steal their domestic fowl, then she needn't come parading in flaunting it and making obscene sarcastic comments. Susan didn't care if Ammi was Paddy's mother or not, she was being vile. Peter thought Susan was being too hard on her, but knew he didn't need to say anything, Susan always knew what he thought, there was no need to voice his opinion right then.

It was hard to believe, even for Edmund who had seen it done hundreds of times, that this same young woman with the currently unpleasant expression etched between her pretty, red-gold eyebrows and a dead chicken in her arms usually _charmed_ her way into the star families with her ladylike behavior.

At least she hadn't dropped her Narnian accent and run around barefoot swiping sugar canes from the neighbours, but she was still being far more herself than was typical for these missions.

Was she trying, in a subtle way, to show that Jadis couldn't control every choice she made and step she took? But, if that was so, hadn't having a baby in spite of the witch's anger already done that? Only, to be frank, that had been Edmund's choice more than Ammi's, even though she'd been the one to give birth to the child. This could be her way of reminding the witch that as soon as this was over, she was never going to be her little actress again.

Unfortunately, her defiant domestic-grounds poaching was going to be more frustrating to the Ramandus than to Jadis at this point.

Lucy didn't understand the reference Ammi was making and half-frowned uncertainly.

Edmund willed himself not to smile in awe of her continued innocence. It would have been a lot easier to concentrate on self-control, though, if there wasn't the sound of a bell ringing in his ear.

"Who is ringing that bloody bell?" Edmund shouted, finally at wit's end, throwing his hands up in the air.

It wasn't, as Edmund had suspected for a split-second there, the doorbell or anything else of the sort, but Raynbi, who had come in and crept over to his side and was now ringing a little silver bell near one of his ears.

"Raynbi!" he barked, twisting his neck to yell at her with more ease.

"What?" she asked in Calormene, holding the bell by the handle rather pathetically. "I'm saving you from the evil eye, Biyda." She glanced over at Ammi disdainfully.

Edmund muttered something about 'blasted irritating Calormene superstitions' that made Aravis scowl at him defensively and Raynbi look momentarily hurt before she raised her free hand to her scalp and started scratching at it absently but with surprising vim.

"Why are you scratching your head?" Peter asked her, concerned.

She answered in Calormene, and Edmund had to translate. "She says her skin's been very itchy under her hair the last few days and she doesn't know why."

"That could be a medical thing, a rash of sorts, or dryness," Peter pointed out. "Do you want me to look at it?"

Edmund felt momentarily fearful, wondering if head-scratching, as unlikely as it seemed, was some kind of symptom of any lesser-known disease. There was, after all, no telling what horror Raynbi could have picked up in her former line of work.

Patiently ordering her not to scratch anymore to avoid aggravating the condition, whatever it turned to to be, and asking Susan to find Clara and have her bring him the Calormene-to-Narnian dictionary from the library, Peter led Raynbi into the smaller adjourning room.

"Can someone show me to the kitchen?" Ammi blurted, glancing down at the game hen she still carried. "That's why I came in here."

Eustace, who had just awakened, groggily offered to.

"Can someone with an actual sense of direction show me to the kitchen?" She corrected emphatically. Useless would get her lost for sure, and she was starting to tire of carrying a dead bird around.

Edmund didn't offer. He hoped if no one did, she would learn to stop stealing other people's poultry.

Reluctantly, deciding she would continue playing the harpsichord later, Polly agreed to help her bring the game hen into the kitchen. She put in, however, that she didn't quite see why, when there was so much food in this mansion, Ammi had to bring more in.

Oh, well, they weren't _her_ hens, at any rate, so she ought to let Coriakin deal with the matter himself. Not that he would do more than order the Dufflepuds to pluck its feathers; Coriakin had yet to scold a guest or resident older than twelve. In fact, Peter did more scolding in the household than his father ever cared-or needed-to.

"I wanted to get married soon," Aravis said suddenly. "Cor asked me, but neither of us can afford it."

Lucy sat up a little straighter, being careful not to jolt Paddy. "What do you mean? You're a Griffin Rider, King Frank makes sure you get paid."

"I've barely had to be sent out at all since that dragon incident on Susan's balcony." Aravis shook her head. "I'll have enough to get by, but nothing extra, not this month at least. The majority of the Griffin Riders' budget will go to the ones who've been sent out on the hardest missions as of late."

"But don't you get an added pension for taking on an apprentice?" Lucy asked. Something in her voice wasn't as it normally sounded, more forced and higher pitched, and Edmund wondered suddenly, as she _was_ looking at him out of the corner of her eye, if she and Aravis had planned this.

"I _would_ ," grumped Aravis, cocking her head and out-right _glaring_ over at Edmund now; "if my apprentice would bother showing up to local practice even once in all the time we've been living in the same house."

"I think you should, Ed!" Lucy blurted, dropping the demure facade, no longer acting but staring at him pleadingly in earnest. "Father's never wrong about that sort of thing. And he _knows_ you're meant to be a Griffin Rider." She also thought it would be another thing to keep his mind off of Toffee-Leaves; they really couldn't keep relying sorely on the endless glass jars of honey she left outside his bedroom door to starve off all of his urges; he needed a new hobby, a new goal to aim for.

"If I say no, you can't get married?" Edmund sigh-asked Aravis, already giving in, though more for Lucy's sake than hers. But, honestly, how much could a couple of gold bands and a marriage license cost in Narnia?

"I wouldn't have any qualms about a simple exchange of rings with a few close friends present," Aravis explained, a touch tersely, reminding Edmund that it wasn't _all_ about him, "but there are too many people who will be offended if Cor and I elope. And it costs a lot to entertain and feed over two dozen Calormene nobles _and_ my friends here in Narnia."

"I'll do it," Edmund agreed verbally, half-smiling. "It sounds like it's for a really good cause."

In spite of the fact that it was Aravis who would now be able to marry her sweetheart, it was _Lucy's_ face that lit up. "Oh, Edmund!" If she hadn't still had Paddy in her lap, she might have jumped up and thrown her arms around his neck.

Edmund tried to remember where he knew Cor from. Corin, Cor's gap-toothed twin, was close to Susan, like a kid brother, and whenever he came round she treated him rather similar to how Peter treated Lucy, but Edmund was certain he'd met, or at least caught a glimpse of, them before moving into the mansion. Then he remembered that they had been the ones who first told Mr. Tumnus about the Griffin Riders when Dragon-Eustace 'carried him off'.

Peter and Raynbi came out of the other room. Raynbi looked semi-upset, and Peter had what looked like some sort of clear-coloured bug caught between a pair of wooden tweezers. "Head lice. That's all. There's nothing medically wrong with her, she's fine."

Unfortunately, that meant that Raynbi had to have the majority of her long dark hair, the same hair that had been her crowning glory back in Calormene, cut off.

Edmund ended up being the one put up to the job, after confessing that he cut his own hair, and his cousin's.

Edmund, Lucy, Tumnus, Eustace, and Peter all went up to Raynbi's room and Clara brought them a pair of scissors.

Raynbi sat down on a backless wooden stool and started crying. She had never had short hair before and was a little anxious about how stupid it might look. After a few moments though, she sucked in a sharp, brave little breath and announced that she intended to be a heroine about this and not make too big a fuss.

Edmund, the only one who understood what she was saying, chuckled nervously and snapped the scissors open.

"Do you know," said Raynbi very quietly, more to herself for comfort than to Edmund by way of actual conversation, "it might almost be nice to be rid of it all...if my hair is short, men cannot pull me by it when they are drunk and angry anymore."

Edmund didn't mention that she wasn't very likely to meet any angry intoxicated men in Coriakin's mansion, he just nodded and stiffly put a lock of her hair between the scissor blades.

Within the next twenty-five minutes, the floor around Raynbi's stool was covered with locks of black hair. Edmund finished up making sure it was even, then stood back to examine his work.

It didn't look too bad, aside from the fact that long hair had complemented poor Raynbi in a greatly flattering way short hair never would; it looked, more or less, exactly like Edmund's own haircut.

Lucy, meaning only to be sweet and reassuring, innocently remarked, "You look like Edmund."

And Raynbi burst into tears.

It wasn't that there was anything wrong with Edmund's hair, only he was a _boy_! What nonsense being a heroine about this was turning out to be after all! What sort of heroine had to cut off her hair because of lice? There wasn't a single thing romantic about _that_. And she was sure that the cut that looked fine on Edmund was painfully comical on herself, as likely as not.

"It's all right," chimed in Peter's gentle 'doctor voice', coming to the rescue. "It will grow back." And he brought her a little hand-mirror so she could see for herself it really wasn't so bad.

Raynbi took hold of the mirror's handle, wrapping her fingers tightly around it, and wiped at her eyes with the back of her free wrist. She had grown to rather like the young, kindly physician, and was not proud of crying so in front of him.

Tumnus found himself staring at Edmund and Raynbi with a half-bemused, half-thoughtful expression. He suddenly understood what Edmund might have meant when he asked him if he'd gotten a good look at her face when she had first been brought to the mansion.

It wasn't a certainty, there was no way they could really be sure, but there seemed to be a good chance that Raynbi and Edmund had the same father; which would account for Raynbi's looks being half northern and (with her hair cropped short like it was now) similar both to Edmund's and to the one traitor Tumnus had ever seen survive long enough to be freed of the White Witch's clutches.

"We could be twins," Edmund joked, putting a friendly arm around Raynbi's shoulders now that she was no longer crying over the loss of her hair. "Although, Aslan knows there's no shortage of them here."

"Thank you, Biyda." Raynbi glanced into the hand-mirror then craned her neck to smile gratefully at Edmund.

"You have the same nose," Tumnus said softly, tapping his own nose pensively.

"You sort of _do_ ," laughed Lucy, never having noticed that before.

As he left the room, seeing that a look of understanding had dawned on Tumnus's stunned face, Edmund whispered so only the faun could hear, "Don't say anything, all right?"

Sighing, Tumnus nodded and swallowed, wiping quickly at his eyes so that no one could see they had briefly filled with tears.

Later that day, in the mid-evening, sometime shortly after supper, Edmund was taken aback when Clara knocked on his door and said that Peter wished to speak with him privately in the library in about five minutes and she and two Dufflepuds were to escort him.

He doesn't trust me to come on my own, Edmund thought; though, honestly, a kindly faun maidservant and two ditzy one-footed dwarfs weren't exactly the most stern and somber escorts Peter could have sent, all things considered. After all, he was fortunate enough that Peter had made scarcely any mention of Toffee-Leaves over the last couple of days that were not related directly to medical questions which any given physician would have had to ask.

Still, Edmund did not, as he might have done under other circumstances, attempt to make small talk with Clara or scoff at the Dufflepuds' joint stupidity, he kept his eyes straight ahead and thought only about what he would say to Peter if he-as he was bound to-brought up the Toffee-Leaves. How would he possibly explain himself? And what was there left to explain, when it came down to that? After all, Peter had probably seen all he needed to in order to be convinced that he, Edmund Maugrim, was no good.

By the time he finally arrived at the library and the doors were shut behind him by the Dufflepuds and Clara, who naturally would not be included in this little meeting with Master Peter, Edmund could feel a childish lump in his throat throbbing and swallowed at it furiously.

He was much too old, he decided, to want to cry just because somebody didn't like him.

Peter was sitting in a low-backed oak-wood chair at a table (one of the same ones, Edmund was quite certain, himself and Ammi had been jumping on during their sword fight) waiting for him.

"You wanted to see me?" To avoid fidgeting nervously with his fingers, Edmund kept his hands folded tightly together behind his back.

"Yes, Edmund Maugrim." Peter glanced up at him wearily. "We haven't really talked since..."

"I know," blurted Edmund.

"What you did," Peter went on, shaking his head and slowly standing up, pressing one hand against the table so hard the knuckles on it went white, "was inexcusable. It was stupid, irresponsible, dangerous, and it lowered my opinion of you."

A little simultaneous sigh from a nearby corner alerted Edmund to the fact that he and Peter were not actually alone in the library. Susan was there too, reading a book in a high-backed velvet-cushioned chair facing the other direction.

"She would hear my half of the conversation anyway, as well as my thoughts on your half," Peter explained, gesturing quickly over at his sister. "It seemed pointless to ask her to leave. I will, though, if her presence is a distraction for you; I really want you to hear what I have to say."

"No, it's fine," Edmund said, less unnerved about someone else being there now that he knew it was only Peter's twin. "She's not bothering me."

"I don't care about anything _bothering_ you, Mr. Maugrim, this is _our_ mansion," snapped Peter impatiently, folding his arms across his chest. "I just want your undivided attention right now."

"You have it," Edmund assured him, wishing they were not standing so near to the lit fireplace, because the heat was making a ghastly bead of sweat run down from his right eyebrow to the side of his chin and he was sure Peter could see it quite clearly.

"Good." Peter nodded in a somber, dark manner. "At any rate, if the last two days have told you nothing else, you've no doubt realized I haven't thrown you out. Do you know why?"

Edmund mumbled that maybe it was to do with the fact that he was sick.

"Partly," Peter agreed, seeming pleased with his response, if not the grumbling tone in which it was given in. "Because, yes, Edmund, I am your doctor now, and as such I do feel personally responsible for you to some extent."

Not knowing what else to say, Edmund murmured something about being grateful and wanting to apologize for having been so stupid. "I'm especially sorry I scared Lucy like that," he managed to finish with, in a slightly stronger tone. He knew it must have been awful for her to see him after chewing all those leaves.

Peter's face softened, then hardened again. "I hope you realize how lucky you are to have someone like my sister for a friend."

"I do," Edmund said quickly.

"I heard you are officially going to be Aravis's apprentice so she can get married," Peter told him.

"Yeah, it didn't seem like I had much choice."

"You're right, you didn't." Peter smiled tightly. "If you _had_ said no, as your physician I would have ordered you to attend local practice for Griffin Riding regardless. It's time for you to find another way to deal with whatever problems you've been turning to those Toffee-Leaves to solve. But I'm glad you said yes on your own, Lucy hasn't stopped talking about it."

In spite of his anxiety, the thought of Lucy blabbering on about him becoming a Griffin Rider (even if he wouldn't be around to finish training) made an involuntary smile creep up onto his face and his cheeks redden just a little.

Peter noticed this, and did not seem pleased, his own barely-there smile waning dramatically. "Which brings us to what I really want you to understand."

Edmund forced himself to stop beaming like an idiot and listen carefully.

"I am Lucy's brother _before_ I'm a physician," Peter informed him pointedly, his eyes sharp as daggers, revealing a touch of the real, intense anger towards Edmund he felt and had been decorously holding back. "Do you know what I mean by that?"

Edmund blinked, playing stupid; he knew Peter was probably going to tell him anyway.

"It means what I said before, about having you turned out of this mansion if you pursued a romantic relationship with Lucy, still stands." He unfolded his arms and pounded one hand emphatically on the side of the table.

Susan let out a little yelp and twisted in her chair. Whatever book she had been reading fell out of her lap and onto the carpet with a light _thud_. "Ouch, Peter!"

"Sorry, Su," he said out of the corner of his mouth, noticing that she was rubbing at her wrist in the same place he'd hit his on the table. To Edmund, he continued, "I'm more convinced now, after what happened, that a relationship with you would be damaging to her mental health than I was when I first told you to back off. So just be a good friend, stick to your own business and whatever Aravis or I tell you is necessary for either your own health or Griffin Rider's training and you'll be fine. And when you're ready, you can show yourself out like you told me you would. Is that all clear?"

"As crystal," Edmund gulped, biting onto his lower lip.

"You're dismissed," Peter said, sitting back down and picking up a quill-pen as if he was about to start on some paperwork. "You may leave my sight now."

And at that, Edmund turned and left the room, not once looking back over his shoulder at Peter or Susan.


	18. Jadis Can't Have Her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good lord, me from 9 years ago, take it easy -- your former obsession with Bollywood is showing!

"Lucy, I'm telling you, it was the most incredible thing!" Edmund exclaimed, his brown eyes flashing with unrestrained excitement as he told her all about what it was like sitting on what felt like the edge of the world in an old griffin's nest. "Seeing the world the way they do..." He shook his head, unable to describe it as well as he wanted to; he couldn't seem to manage to do it justice, and that both irked and amazed him at the same time.

When Aravis informed him that he would have to climb up there for his first lesson, saying that he had to learn to see through the griffins' eyes if he ever expected them to trust him enough to let him mount, he had thought she was completely out of her mind.

"You have got to be joking!" Edmund had cried out in utter disbelief, craning his neck back to gape, slack-jawed, up at the high nest that he would have never thought could possibly be in a place as rural as the majority of the Lantern Waste was had Aravis not shown him where to look.

So it wasn't safe for him to _approach_ a griffin yet, not one single second before his second week was he to even _think_ about trying it, he was given strict orders to that exact effect by both Aravis _and_ Polly, but he could climb into one of their nests and break his neck in the process, and expect everything to be perfectly fine? Brilliant reasoning right there, that was for sure!

But Aravis assured him the Griffin Nest in question was empty and would not be used again until the next season change at earliest.

He would, at that height, see plenty of griffins in the distance and, more importantly, be able to grow accustom to seeing life through the eyes of a flying creature.

Edmund tried to tell her that he figured being snatched up by a dragon and dropped onto a balcony was good enough and maybe he ought to skip this lesson, but she'd only folded her arms across her chest, looked very impatient, and demanded to know if he was afraid of heights or else just trying to be lousy at training on purpose.

After that he had finally given in, shut his mouth, and just did as she insisted.

And was he ever glad he did! It was shockingly remarkable, seeing nearly half of Western Narnia from up in that nest, and the climb itself made him feel stronger somehow.

Then there had been the griffins themselves, flying about, never-minding the unpopulated nesting area he was crouched in, gazing at them from. They cawed, calling to one another, and soared through the air, answering several such calls, flashes of feathers and light fur in the dazzling sun.

Most of the griffins were tan-coloured or golden in hue, but Edmund was sure he spotted one or two that were nearly as white as snow and even a little spotted one who's colouring resembled that of a dapple-gray horse.

This nearly utopian vision was momentarily spoiled when a hideous creature Edmund couldn't name came flying towards the two albino griffins. It was sand-coloured, literally had red eyes (it's irises gleamed the very shade of gushing blood), and also had big bat-like wings.

It bared a pair of fangs and hissed at the two griffins threateningly.

"It'll kill them!" That thing could easily over-power the white griffins, which were slightly smaller than their golden cousins.

"No, _watch_." Aravis had put her hand on his shoulder to keep him from leaping up or falling out of the side of the nest with alarm.

The golden griffins and the tan ones, all farther off, came to the rescue of the snowy ones, and the gray one pecked at the crimson eyes of the intruder. Its sharp nails on its feet slashed at one of the tan griffin's lion-half and it tried to tear off the tail of a golden one. But, finally, the voiceless sandy creature, bleeding from an eye-wound and missing his left fang, admitted defeat and flew off.

The griffins were completely unharmed.

Then the scene became beautiful again; the griffins flew and returned to their usual rounds of sky patrolling and clan matters.

"That creature was evil, it meant trouble to the griffins and trouble to these parts," Aravis had had to explain so that her apprentice could understand what he'd witnessed. "Griffins, as a rule, are repelled by evil. If an evil being approaches them or one of their kind, or if there's a Rider on their back urging them to a fight for a mission, they will attack to overcome it, but they don't seek evil on their own. Which is why evil men and women cannot become Griffin Riders. If there is an evil intent or purpose in your heart, they will sense it and, no matter how well you've been trained, refuse to approach you when you signal them."

"So basically, evil can approach _them_ but they don't approach evil?"

"In so many words, yes, I suppose that's it."

And now he was telling Lucy all about the lesson, leaving out only the few raw details he was sure she wouldn't care about hearing, such as the sand-coloured creature hemorrhaging from its eyeball, and the fact that he had uttered some less than charming words when he almost lost his balance and fell during the climb up into the nest.

They were sitting in the entertainment room, just themselves, Paddy (who was playing with a fat-looking rubber duck and a black-furred stuffed mouse almost as tall as himself on the rug in front of the sofa), and Aravis. Because nobody was playing it, the harpsichord and its matching seat was covered by an enormous silken cloth.

Lucy smiled shyly. "Well, that sounds wonderful. And...I...I thought you looked very handsome in your armour." She couldn't quite meet his gaze without blushing.

Suddenly the fact that Aravis had made him wear heavy, protective garments that had to be fastened round his waist with thick leather straps all ending in a series of troublesome buckles, shoulder armour, and thin copper-plated elbow pads over his usual doublet and tights, magically seemed worth it. It hadn't seemed so when he was climbing in it, but now that Lucy went and said that, Edmund recalled catching a glimpse of the demistar standing behind a marble pillar near the side doors he and Aravis had used that morning, watching him leave the mansion.

"Really?" he said demurely, a little too pleased with himself, smiling blithely at a currently red-cheeked Lucy.

She nodded shyly.

Paddy started blowing spit-bubbles and wiping them off on the stuffed mouse's nose.

Aravis came over from where she was sitting by one of the windows and plopped down on the other side of Lucy. "I'm so glad Las is already married," she announced; "she would have been inordinately offended if I didn't make her my chief bridesmaid; being just a bridesmaid wouldn't have been good enough for the likes of her. No, she always had to be in charge, even when we were children. And I would have _had_ to let her, you know, or my father would have been cross...and Lasaraleen's father, too. Now I can choose whoever I like, and it's my own business for once."

Sensing that his moment of semi-flirting with Lucy and getting away with it was pretty much over, Edmund let out a sigh and resigned himself to the fact that he would have to listen to the girls talk about Aravis and her wedding plans.

If only seating arrangements, new gowns, flowers, and all that rot weren't such painfully dull subjects!

Not that he truly minded if _Lucy_ talked about dull things; he could be dull with her for hours and days, maybe even weeks, and still feel an unexplainable flush of excitement coursing through his veins the whole time.

"Lucy, would _you_ be my chief bridesmaid?" Aravis asked.

"Yes, of course!" Lucy's face lit up and she giggled like a small child, grasping both of her friend's hands. "I would love to."

"And Gael will no doubt like to be an under-bridesmaid?"

"She'll be thrilled," predicted Lucy.

"I must have at least two of my father's friends' daughters from the Calormene nobility," Aravis said, "but I should like to at least be able to have some of my own friends among my own wedding party."

"Please tell me you won't have to invite that horrid Rabadash," Lucy begged, suddenly remembering that as much as Aravis herself disliked the crown prince of Calormen, he was doubtless still on the best of terms with Aravis's father and stepmother, both of whom were known for fawning over their country's monarchs, present and future.

"Unfortunately," sighed Aravis, "I've got to. I'm simply hoping he'll be drunk when he gets the invitation or else won't be able to come on such short notice. I've moved up the wedding date on purpose for that reason."

"Yeah, _that's_ the reason," teased Edmund cheekily, implying that her fascination with her bridegroom-to-be had just as much to do with the change of dates as anything else.

"Stay out of this, you," play-snapped Aravis, making a face at him and waving his comment off with a cutting hand-gesture. "Apprentices should be seen and not heard."

Lucy giggled and pressed both hands to her mouth.

"If Rabadash does come," Edmund added, a bit more seriously, "I hope he doesn't recognize me."

Still laughing a little, Lucy reached down towards Edmund's belt and pulled out his dagger with Aslan's head on it. "Don't worry, Ed, I'll protect you."

Remembering her saving him (or _thinking_ she was saving him) from Dragon-Eustace, Edmund smiled and sighed to himself. He reached for her hand and gently unwound her slender fingers from around the hilt, taking the dagger into his own hand. "And what are you going to do with that, Lucy-Lu?" he teased mercilessly. "Stab the crown prince in the hand?"

"If I have to," said Lucy, leaning close to Edmund's face for a moment, then pulling back.

Edmund had the urge to close the gap between their faces again and kiss her, but as Aravis was with them, and he wasn't entirely sure where Peter was right then (it would be just his luck if her brother picked that specific moment to come strolling in), he restrained himself, forcing slightly exaggerated laughter as he slid the dagger back into its sheath on his belt.

The days leading up to Aravis and Cor's wedding seemed to pass very quickly for Edmund after that. They were a great blur of satisfying but at times tedious-even painful-Griffin Rider training sessions, spools and spools of colourful silk for new garments for both the bride's party and the bridegroom's, Calormene dancing taught by Raynbi-and, in turn, spurned by Ammi, endless thinking about Lucy and what to do in regards to her now, continued laughter both of the real sort and the passable imitation that fooled everyone, the occasional sharp look from Peter, a couple more threatening notes from Galma along the same lines as the first one, Eustace constantly going on and on about Jill Pole, and a few more nightmares that made him awaken in a cold sweat, panting madly, though he didn't cry out loudly enough for anyone-namely Lucy-to hear and come to him those times.

Naturally, however, there _were_ a small number of major events that stood out clearly in the midst of the massive blur: his first time approaching a griffin, who, to Edmund's great surprise actually said, in plain Narnian, "Hallo there," as he came close to it (Aravis explained that while all griffins could speak, only a handful learned to speak a tongue as complex as Narnian properly, that griffin obviously among that handful of statistics); Gael racing about the mansion, showing everybody her under-bridesmaid's rose-coloured Calormene-style dress, and Coriakin cutting pink roses from the garden so Lucy and Susan could make her a matching garland to wear on her head; Lucy, Aravis, Polly, and Susan rushing off to fittings for their own new dresses for the wedding and giggling into their palms when they returned as if they'd all simultaneously discovered some delightful new secret the boys at the mansion were not included in for the time being; a particularly comical moment where a large cake that was to be served at the reception was ruined because Eustace accidentally sat on it and several tempers were lost.

The wedding was arranged so that Aravis and Cor could entertain their guests in the garden. Miniature oil lanterns hung from the trees, there were couches for reclining and open spaces for dancing, and the scent of various Narnian and Calormene foods filled the air with a rich, mouth-watering fragrance.

Cor was dressed in the garments of an Archenlander bridegroom, but he was forced to wear a short Calormene head-covering for the first part of the ceremony (it had been Aravis's great grandfather's, worn at his own wedding, which had supposedly been the start of a blissful nearly fifty-nine year marriage, and her parents had made it clear that they would forbid the match if he refused the great honour of wearing it).

Nonetheless, he looked pleased, peering from under the head-covering at his bride as she walked out into the garden in her wedding finery, a scarlet sari-like outfit with raised fiery-copper thread and gold bangles, accompanied by her bridesmaids and her cheery-faced chief bridesmaid who was on her right, leading her by the middle of the arm and half-hidden behind the profile of her respectfully lowered head.

Aravis had complained to Lucy, back inside the mansion, that the heavy gold earrings Lasaraleen had given her for a wedding gift and pretty much demanded that she wear during the ceremony for friendship's sake were pulling on her ears and making them bleed, and she had been making faces about this problem, imagining what a nice fool she would look with bloody ears at her own wedding, but she seemed instantly tranquil when Cor's partially concealed eyes met hers for a split-second. Suddenly the fact that her ears were killing her and probably jolly well stretched to the size of an elephant's by now didn't matter so much. This wedding might have been arranged to please everyone, but what happened afterward and for the rest of their lives would be just for the two of them. A few hours of sore ears was a worthy sacrifice for a lifetime of relative happiness.

Edmund, who had gotten included in the bridegroom's party even though he barely knew Cor (he was grateful that Edmund had taken the apprenticeship, as he knew there most likely wouldn't have even _been_ a wedding otherwise), pretended to bend down and adjust a bunched-up woolen sock in his left boot, when really he was trying to see passed Aravis to get a good look at Lucy.

Lucy's clothes was the oddest mix of Calormene and Narnian garments he had ever seen, but it suited her extremely well. Her red dress was of an overtly Narnian pattern, especially the velvet sleeves and the northern-style stitching on the raised-gold brocade of the bodice, it's skirt (also northern, though perhaps a touch more Archenlander than Narnian) had a flare that would have made it easy to run and dance or go riding and hunting in; but over this dress, she had donned a scarlet and golden veil that doubled as a thin shawl or stole and was Calormene-style through and through. On her left wrist, she wore two solid gold bangles that looked almost too small for her but really were not, being of the kind that have a fasten that opens and closes rather than the kind that slips over the fingers and onto the hand.

He almost felt a little under-dressed in comparison. His own tunic, though of fine quality, was another one Peter had out-grown and thus was not new or embellished with anything of a Calormene-style specifically for the wedding and his blue-and-gray wool coat had a giant crease in the back that would not be smoothed no matter how many times Clara took a hot iron to it. His hat (a simple, woolen thing, nothing at all like the pompous top-hat Tumnus had tried to make him wear the night he went out with Lucy and broke the glass chessman piece) and long scarf (it was quite cold, and he honestly didn't know how the ladies went about in gauzy veils, however much it suited some of them-especially Lucy-when there was such a chill in the air) were his from before he came to the mansion, the same he'd been wearing out chopping firewood in Charn when Ammi first told him she was pregnant.

But considering one _could_ be dressed like some of the Calormene noblemen in billowy robes that flowed a little too freely in the wind and ridiculous jewels so over-sized they looked more like continents than precious stones, or like poor Cor with that funny head-covering and those uncomfortable, sole-less pointed shoes (he had to wear them so he didn't offended Aravis's uncle Ahoshta, who, ironically, was who her parents had wished her to marry before she ran off to become a Griffin Rider), Edmund counted himself, over-all, pretty fortunate.

Lucy, noticing Edmund's gaze falling on her, snuck a quick peek at him, and smiled.

Fairly certain Peter had his back turned the other way, Edmund winked boldly at her.

They continued sneaking glances through-out the whole of the ceremony, and this went largely unnoticed; everyone's eyes were on the bride and bridegroom.

Everyone's, except, that is, for Ammi's. _She_ stared unblinkingly, yet misty-eyed, the whole time, over at a certain white, northern-bred man sitting next to his Calormene wife, hurt beyond reason that even when she challenged the heartless piece of filth to meet her eyes, he did not seem to recognize her. She knew Edmund hadn't seen him; and he wasn't likely to, as the man and his wife got up and left right after the ceremony was completed, not bothering to stay for dancing and refreshments. Ammi decided not to tell him or any of the other Traitors he'd been there at all; it would only open old wounds she would rather keep tightly closed.

Bitterly, she wiped the tears from her eyes and forced herself to sit sullenly, still-faced with an up-turned nose, as if disgusted by naught by the culture itself, nothing more, and pout at anyone who met her eyes or asked how she was enjoying herself.

It happened that Rabadash did indeed show up to the reception after the ceremony, but he had so much wine that he could barely stand, much less recognize or fight with anybody.

Lasaraleen came across him, completely oblivious to the fact that he was drunk, and cried out, "Oh, Your Highness!" She clasped her hands together. "I hadn't known _you_ were coming to Aravis's wedding! What a lovely surprise, darling Prince. I'm sure it will be the great thrill of everyone present that someone as important as yourself was here!"

"Is _that_ where I am?" Rabadash swayed, almost falling down, spilling some spiced wine on the front of his shirt, and squinted at her with a confused, petulant facial expression. "I thought I was going to a public hanging."

Meanwhile, Eustace spotted Jill Pole among the crowd of well-wishers and let out a delighted gasp, grabbing onto Edmund as he walked by. "Cousin! That's her!" He pointed to a pretty girl with fair, softly curled hair that looked chestnut-brown in some lights but almost blonde in others.

"That's great," said Edmund, exasperated, not as if he thought it really was 'great' at all.

He had been trying to get over to where Lucy was standing with the other bridesmaids and Eustace was the fifth person who'd gotten in his way thus far in the last five minutes.

"I'm going up to my room, if I can find it," Eustace announced, "to get that box of chocolates I bought for her."

Edmund hit him upside the head. "You _ate_ those, Useless!"

"I threw them out," Eustace lied, rubbing the back of his scalp; "and I replaced them with peppermints. Peppermints are much better for a young lady's digestion, you know."

"Oh, really?" Edmund arched a brow. "I found those supposedly discarded chocolates under your bed."

"Liar." Eustace gulped and sneered at the same time, something most people would have some difficultly doing but he happened to be bizarrely gifted at.

"And you know what?" Edmund smirked, knowing this would make Eustace so appalled he would let him go to Lucy in peace. "I licked every one of them."

"Ugh!" cried Eustace. He let go of his cousin's arm. "I'm infected with _you_!"

"Crying shame. Oh, well, spilled milk and all that. Best of luck; you're going to need it." Edmund walked away from Eustace as fast as humanly possible.

"I'm going up to my room to get those peppermints!" Eustace called after him, cupping his hand around his mouth. "And she's going to think I'm brilliant for knowing about the health benefits of them over sweets! You wait and see, Cousin! You wait and see!"

Two fauns and a Calormene lady standing to his left, all three with half-filled wineglasses in their hands, looked at him strangely.

Eustace frowned at them and blurted, "Shoo, go on, get on. Don't you people have anything better to do?"

When Edmund finally reached Lucy she was dancing in a merry circle, joining hands with Clara and Gael. Tumnus and Susan were making another similar circle close by. Peter was sitting with Cor and Aravis, laughing about something; he looked a little dizzy (Susan spinning around in circles had that connected effect on him), but perfectly fine and contented otherwise, not appearing the least bit cross with anyone at the moment-including Edmund.

Just as Lucy was letting go of Clara and Gael's hands, Edmund, after making sure Peter still wasn't looking in their direction, put his arm around her waist and spun her.

She jumped at first, unexpectedly feeling an arm slip around her, but she laughed happily when she realized who it was. "Edmund!"

Tumnus, who had stopped dancing, raised his eyebrows in approval. Lucy was really growing fond of Edmund. That was good; it meant they could all leave soon. The faun didn't truly _want_ to go-he liked everything about life with Coriakin's family, and seeing Clara every day wasn't half bad, either-but with the threatening notes from Galma and the knowledge that the witch was displeased when they dragged their missions out unnecessarily, he figured they would have to be moving on as soon as possible...no matter how many hearts doing so shattered in the process. There wasn't much choice in the matter. They would have to leave, and poor Lucy would have to follow Edmund, haplessly find herself in Charn, and die as the other demistars had, there was no way around it.

Before Susan (and, by default, Peter) could see him with his arm around Lucy, Edmund quickly let go of her.

"Oh!" gasped Lucy, suddenly, pointing down at something.

"Dash it!" laughed Edmund, seeing what had happened.

Gael and a little dryad girl had crept up to them and tied the end of Edmund's scarf to the corner of Lucy's veil, then gone off, giggling into their palms at the practical jest, unobserved.

Susan was trying to avoid a young man who for some strange reason kept calling her 'Phyllis', and Peter, distracted by his twin's distressed annoyance, was having a hard time remembering what he was trying to tell the traveling merchant Cor had just introduced him to; they didn't see what was happening with Edmund and Lucy.

At first, Lucy was trying to untie the messy double-knot Gael and the other girl had made of her veil and Edmund's scarf, but then, Edmund, that much bolder under the knowledge Peter was otherwise occupied, teasingly tossed the knotted part of his scarf over his shoulder then started walking around in an exaggerated pantomime of a Calormene bridegroom leading his bride (it wasn't unusual for Calormene weddings to include a ceremony in which some garment of the bridegroom's was tied to that of his bride and they were expected to walk around a small fire-pit, even though this one in particular hadn't; it was supposed to be symbolic of steadfastness or some such similar rot).

Catching on, Lucy found herself laughing so hard she could scarcely breathe and had to let go of the knot and hold onto her side, nearly doubling over.

"Look at that; no respect!" said Aravis, nudging her husband, but she was only teasing, not really finding Edmund's jest all that offensive; if anything, she thought it far more amusing that the dull so-called wit of the Calormene nobles she'd been forced to invite.

"I didn't know this was a double wedding," Corin put in, leaning next to his sister-in-law's ear and gesturing at Edmund and Lucy with his chin. "I should have brought an extra present."

Aravis punched him on the arm. "Your present was perfectly dreadful, by the way."

"It's a portrait of Cor, I thought you would love it."

"Corin, it's a painting of _you_."

"My mouth is closed, you can hardly tell the difference!" he protested.

Edmund, finally having stopped running around an imaginary wedding fire long enough for Lucy to get the knot undone, whispered, "Hey, Lu, feel like going for a walk?"

She glanced over her shoulder at Aravis, who was in what was now rather a heated debate with Corin _and_ Cor; the bride didn't seem to need any attending to at the moment, and she didn't have anything else pressing. "Sure."

He felt a touch guilty, wandering off alone with Lucy, since he knew Peter probably wouldn't have allowed them to go off by themselves in the currently unlit parts of the garden not being used for the wedding, but he brushed that emotion off.

How else was he supposed to spend time with Lucy without feeling like he was a stage actor in an audience-packed theater production? Knowing that Jadis had spied on him during missions before, his paranoid side never really let him feel completely unobserved, but it would still be an improvement; besides, in spite of the chill in the air, he couldn't feel or see any signs of the White Witch's presence at the moment, no green mist or random icy patches.

So, willing his fingers not to tremble, he took her hand and set off.

On their way, they bumped into Eustace talking to Jill by the dessert table.

"You don't know me, but I'm in love with you," he was saying, in what _might_ have been an almost romantic voice if his tone didn't sound quite so much like he was speaking with an accountant on a business matter.

"Don't mind us," said Edmund, cutting in and, with his free hand, grabbing what he thought was some kind of assorted sweets in a covered silver box.

Eustace ignored his cousin's presence and continued his little speech, offering Jill the peppermints in a white chocolate box.

"Didn't this used to be a chocolate box?" she asked, opening it.

"Peppermints are better for digestion," Eustace blurted.

"All right..." said Jill, awkwardly, furrowing her brow. "What did you say your name was again?"

"Eustace Clarence Scrubb."

"If anyone so deserves the name," Edmund whispered loudly, making both Jill and Lucy titter collectively.

"Do you mind?" Eustace snapped at his cousin.

"All right, all right, we're going." Still holding Lucy's hand, the silver box tucked under his other arm, they went off to take their walk together.

"Scrubb?" laughed Jill once they were gone. "I say! That _is_ a funny name."

"Well, we can't all have perfect names like _Jill Pole_!" barked Eustace, meaning to be snappish and discourteous, but unwittingly paying her the first noteworthy compliment he'd managed since the beginning of their conversation.

"The other children used to make fun of my name all the time, growing up," said Jill, very seriously. "It isn't perfect at all."

Eustace reddened, and he looked away from her. "Well, _I_ think it is," he murmured. He had thought it was the most beautiful name he'd ever heard from the second Puzzle (that was the donkey's name) uttered it.

Jill felt herself blush and tucked a piece of hair behind one ear.

At first she had found this Scrubb person rather irksome and not the least bit charming, but in spite of the fact that she barely knew him and he evidently had tried to re-gift an old chocolate box after tossing a few peppermints into it, she thought she was beginning to fancy him, maybe just a little bit.

Less than a stone's throw away, Alexander stuck out a foot and tripped some female guest who, after having a swallow more of strong wine than was good for a person of her size, had been flirting rather shamelessly with Perry.

The lady fell face-first on the grassy lawn, lifting her head up and glaring at Alexander as if to demand, "What was _that_ for?"

Alexander whistled faux-innocently.

Meanwhile, Edmund and Lucy walked along the path peacefully; at first they laughed and joked just as they had been doing before that, but after a bit, they found themselves, not so much running out of things to say so much as suddenly lacking the desire to say them.

It was sort of nice to just wander silently about side by side, fingers intertwined.

When they tired of walking, they sat down on the grass, tucking their feet under themselves. They stayed very close to each other (it was a mite too cold sitting out there not to, but they probably would have sat just as close even if the air had been warm).

"Let's see what we have to eat," Edmund said, breaking the silence. He lifted the lid of the silver box, then wrinkled his nose. "I don't know about you, Lu, but I'm not eating that." It appeared to contain nothing but a thick, smeary red ink.

"One of the Calormenes must have brought it with them," Lucy figured. "Someone probably thought, like you did, that it was a dessert and put it with the other sweets."

Edmund now understood what it was for. He'd seen it in Calormen. It was one of that country's traditions that on the rare occasions when a marriage was not arranged by the parents of the bride and bridegroom, a young man made a distinctive line of red ink on the forehead of his betrothed upon their becoming engaged; it was basically the equivalent of an engagement ring.

Lucy knew what it was for, too, and said, "Oh, I feel bad for the poor fellow who meant to propose to his best girl tonight, whoever he is! He must feel so silly after losing the ink."

An idea popped into Edmund's mind and no matter how much he tried to tell himself it was a terrible one through and through that could not possibly end well, that Peter would probably kill him (or at least have him tossed out of the mansion on his bum), some nagging little part of him seemed unwaveringly determined to try it anyway.

"Let's not let it go to waste, then." He put his thumb into the ink, then lifted it to Lucy's forehead, making a thick red line from directly in-between her eyebrows all the way up to her hairline.

Almost timidly, Lucy reached up, as if drawing her fingers to a wound to examine it, and lightly felt at the line of ink. "Oh, Ed!"

He leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers.

As they lingeringly broke apart, Edmund lightly stroked the side of her chin, unwittingly with the same ink-stained thumb he had dragged across her forehead a moment ago. "Sorry, Lu." He laughed a little, noticing he'd left a light red smudge on her chin and lower cheek.

"I don't care," whispered Lucy, leaning into his touch.

He pulled his hand back then slipped his arms all the way around her.

How could he possibly give _her_ up to the witch? How could he even fathom subjecting caring, brave, sweet, wonderful Lucy to a miserable journey to Charn?

A rebellious thought began to grow like a weed in his mind until it choked out all other arguments: _Jadis can't have her_.

The White Witch had stolen away what little chance Edmund had of a decent life, she had taken everything from him, every single hope, and he was at the point where he jolly nearly was too worn out, too _old_ somehow, to care; she could keep whatever she stole, whatever she wanted, and welcome to it, but he wouldn't let her have Lucy.

It was madness, even _thinking_ about rebelling, there was no way of going about it and Edmund knew it, yet he continued to tell himself he would figure something out; he wouldn't go through with this last betrayal, he just _couldn't_.

But he wouldn't think of that now, it was making his head hurt. Sighing, he kissed Lucy again, letting his mind clear itself as she returned the favor.

Lucy pulled her veil over their heads, giving them privacy, even though everybody was too far away see them anyway.

Edmund put his hand on the small of her back and continued kissing her; her mouth, her cheeks, her brow, the tip of her nose, her neck...

"That tickles, Ed," giggled Lucy, when his lips first touched her neck.

He pulled away ever so slightly and then pressed his forehead against hers.

"Lu-cee!" a little voice called, followed by the swinging light of a lantern in the distance piercing through the veil. "Lucy! Lu-cee! Where are you?"

"Someone's calling me," Lucy whispered the obvious.

Edmund loosened his grasp on her and jerked his head back. He came out from under the veil as if it was a tent; Lucy pulled it back from her own head and wrapped it around her arms and shoulders like a folded shawl.

The veil slipped on one side, and even though it did very little to keep her warm anyway (her sleeves themselves were doing that all on their own, the veil making previous scarce difference, really), Edmund tenderly pulled it up over her shoulder again. "Go on."

Lucy noticed that he was walking away from her, concealing himself behind a tree. "You're not coming with me?"

"I'll come back later." It was probably best if he wasn't seen; that way no one would have anything to tell Peter later-on purpose or otherwise.

Lucy bit her lower lip; she felt tears in her eyes, but she wasn't sure why. Blinking them away, she ran towards the voice.

It was Gael. "Lucy! There you are." Her face untwisted with relief. "Peter and Susan were looking for you; Aravis, too. She took off her left shoe and threw it at Corin's head, nobody can guess why; you missed it."

Lucy was only half-hearing what her little sister was saying, she was glancing over the child's shoulder at the stars where they hung the lowest in the sky, her expression dazed and dreamy.

Figuring out that she was only partly being listened to, Gael stopped talking and looked very intently at Lucy. She looked awful strange. Her hair was slightly matted, her cheeks were darkly flushed while the rest of her face was gone white, and her forehead had a smudged red line on it.

"Lucy, are you all right?"

"Hmm?" Lucy blinked. "Oh, yes, I've never been better." _Not in my whole life_ , she added in her head. "Come, let's go back. I'd best stop at the mansion first, though."

"So you can wash your face?" Gael asked harmlessly. "You've gotten it all dirty. Susan's likely to scold you."

"Yes," said Lucy quickly, taking Gael's hand.

Edmund came out from behind the tree after they were gone and slowly made his way back towards the wedding. He would have liked to go into the mansion, but Lucy was going there now, and he didn't want Peter to see them both come out of the vacant mansion at the same time any more than he wanted him to see them both come back from their walk together.

He walked slowly, dragging his feet, thinking everything over.

Not only did he still have no clue what he was going to do about Jadis and the fact that he was a traitor for her, but he was now trying to figure out just how legally binding that little stunt he'd pulled with the red ink was.

Was Lucy actually engaged to him now? Were he and Lucy betrothed for real?

"I wonder how Peter will like that, if we are," Edmund muttered to himself, knowing _exactly_ what Peter would think.

This really was getting steeper and more complex by the second. Even Tumnus wouldn't approve, he was sure. Edmund had never been quite that affectionate with a demistar (well, with anyone, really, but that wasn't the point) before. And he had certainly never tried to _marry_ one.

Only, _was_ he trying to marry Lucy? Or had he just been playing around with a box of ink? Put in such blunt terms, it sounded mean. But he couldn't marry her, he was supposed to betray her, only he couldn't do _that_ either.

Ammi and Eustace were going to be furious. No, they weren't, because he wasn't going to tell them about it! No, wait, what was he thinking? Of course he had to tell them what was going on; it was their freedom-and Tumnus's-on the line, too!

But not only was going to be hard, explaining that he couldn't go through with the betrayal, he also didn't want to have to tell them about tonight; he didn't want to talk about it, it was between him and Lucy.

Then his thoughts turned to Paddy; who was taking care of the kid? Was it Raynbi he had left in charge of the little chap? He couldn't remember, his head was spinning too fast.

Just as quickly, his mind flickered to Jadis. She _knew_ he was going to like Lucy, maybe even that he would fall in love with her, and she'd sent him here on his last mission because it was a crueler form of torture than a million floggings or a thousand and one nights locked in an icy dungeon without a bite to eat.

There was no time for further thought, because Edmund found himself back at the wedding.

He wandered aimlessly over to where a group of Calormene boys about his own age were standing around talking. "What-ho?"

They gave him a dirty look.

"I'll give you three gold coins apiece if you pretend I was here talking to you for the past hour," he hissed.

Their demeanour changed completely, a row of deep frowns magically turned up into wide-lipped smiles. One of them slapped him on the back like he was an old friend.

"And so then this huge bear charged out of nowhere!" Edmund exclaimed, pretending to be in the middle telling an exciting story, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Peter was coming their way.

"By Tash! You surely jest, Sir!" gasped one of the boys over-dramatically, pressing his hand to his heart.

Edmund tried not to wince; that boy seriously needed some acting lessons, he was worse than Eustace!

"Edmund," said Peter, upon reaching him, "have you seen Lucy?"

"She went back to the mansion with Gael," Edmund said. It wasn't a lie, at least.

Peter paused, getting the feeling there was more to it than just that, but unable to figure out what it could possibly be. "Why is your forehead red?"

Edmund remembered leaning his forehead against Lucy's; that would be why, the ink must have rubbed off some.

Unable to think of a plausible explanation, Edmund did something that he always felt afterward was not only kind of cowardly but also extremely childish. He widened his eyes, pointed over Peter's shoulder, and said, "Look over there!"

Peter turned around, his eyebrows knitted. "Where? I don't see anything."

And Edmund had fled.

Back up in her room, Lucy leaned over the basin of fresh water and rubbed at her face. She didn't really want to wash the ink off; she wanted to wear it always, to remember this incredible night every time she saw her reflection, which had always seemed so commonplace before. It was amazing how one simple, albeit overt, red mark could make such a plain face so changed. But she would have to wash it off _sometime_. And, besides, Gael was right, Susan _would_ scold her if she showed up 'a mess' after disappearing like that.

She splashed a seventh double fistful of water on her face and scrubbed. When it was finally clean (the ink was not easy to get off), she wiped her dripping forehead and chin dry with a towel.

Her eyes fell to where the velvet green cloak Edmund had bought her was draped over a chair in the corner.

"I wonder," she said softly to herself, placing the towel down beside the basin, "if I'm betrothed to Edmund Maugrim or not."


	19. Snowdrops & Changed Plans

" _Mabel!" The cry of utter despair and untold suffering echoed on the icy walls of the White Witch's castle in Charn._

_A Traitor boy of perhaps thirteen years who was not Edmund but looked a great deal like him, even having the same dark hair, brown eyes, and distinctive nose, ran down the corridor; he knew he would never reach his cousin in time, but that did not stop him from charging to her side as fast as he could, using every single bit of energy he had before his body locked itself into shock and drained it all out of him._

_Mabel, the boy's favorite cousin and fellow traitor, lay helplessly on the floor, flat on her back, her long blonde hair with the two tiny braids in it fanned out all around her; her thick, unevenly cut bangs were stuck to her forehead with sweat that had frozen over. She bled profusely from a stomach-wound, and she was coughing and vomiting up blood as well. It seemed that she'd gone and hit her head when she fell backwards after being stabbed by Jadis in the stomach._

_The boy all but collapsed at her side, landing on his aching knees, fumbling for her hand so he could hold it._

_He wouldn't say it was going to be all right; because he knew it wasn't. Yet, at the same time, paradoxically, he could not keep himself calm, not like he wanted to, not even for her sake. Mabel would have wanted to die looking into a calm, resigned face; he knew she would have taken that over hysterics any day. The problem was, he felt he was no longer strong enough._

_He was already falling apart, and this was the final straw. Jadis had taken everything from him, and he, in his desire to one day be free, had barely even grudged her any of it. But he passionately hated her for taking Mabel from him._

_He had another cousin, it was true, but she wasn't Mabel; she was a traitor, too, but she wasn't his friend. Only Mabel was his friend. He didn't love anyone else. He tolerated his brother and his other cousin. He liked Tumnus, his mentor, well enough. But he only loved Mabel. No one else mattered to him._

_They were going to live together once they got their freedom. That had been the plan. But not anymore. Jadis had just taken Mabel's life. She wouldn't last much longer._

" _I..." Mabel's voice croaked out hoarsely._

" _Stay with me!" he sobbed madly. "I won't let you go."_

" _You have to," she gasped out, choking on her own blood as she struggled to speak. "I can't stay. You can see I'm dying, you aren't stupid."_

" _I'll bandage you up!" he shouted, squeezing her hand so hard he probably broke some of the bones in it unwittingly. "We'll get herbs...we'll..."_

_She was trying to shake her head, more blood coming out of her mouth and streaming out of her stomach. "No...there's no time...Jadis..."_

" _I could kill her."_

_Mabel forced her free hand upwards and pressed it against his mouth. "Promise me you won't ever say that again. I won't have you die, too."_

" _I_ want _to!"_

" _I_ don't _want you to." Her hand fell back down, it took too much strength to keep it_ _up._

" _The world is a cruel, dirty place," he wailed in a broken, angry voice. "There is no goodness in it."_

" _That is not true."_

" _A world that would make me be a traitor for a witch then take you away from me is nothing short of despicable. As is everyone in it, and whoever made it."_

" _Stop it...please..."_

" _I'll get my revenge on it," he muttered, more to himself than to poor, dying Mabel._

" _Sing something."_

" _You know I don't sing."_

" _Then tell me a story. I don't want...your last words to me...to be..._ that _..."_

" _Once there was a boy and a girl." Still holding her hand, he brought it to his chest, pressing the back of it against his heart. "The boy had dark hair, like mine, and the girl was golden-haired, like you."_

_Mabel forced a weak, crimson-stained smile._

" _The girl asked the boy to sing, only..." He laughed bitterly to himself and wiped his nose with the back of his free wrist. "You see, he was a bloody terrible singer, and he didn't know any songs."_

_Mabel gasped out a feeble attempt at a laugh._

" _So he made up this story, see, only it was bloody awful...It didn't even have a plot...just two characters, a boy and a girl who looked like you and me..."_

_She closed her eyes. "I like your story."_

" _Mabel, open your eyes."_

_She didn't. Her chest stopped going up and down._

" _Mabel! Open your eyes, damn it!"_

_Tumnus, watching all this with big tears brimming over in his own eyes, came up behind the boy and put a woolen blanket over his shoulders, trying to comfort him. He laid his hand on his trembling right shoulder._

_In truth, though, it was a blind, bitter rage mixed with the shock that had finally caught up to him, that made the boy shake more than it was the cold._

_The boy shrugged it off as brutally as humanly possible. He hurled the blanket at the faun's head. "Get away from me! You did nothing to help her! You were supposed to be helping us! I'm never doing anything you tell me to again. You're nothing but a bloody liar, Tumnus!" he bellowed. "You promised that if we just did the witch's bidding until she freed us, everything would be all right! Well it's not. Mabel's dead! She's dead, and she's not coming back. From now on, I play the games in life my way! Do you hear me, Tumnus?_ My _way!" He lowered himself onto the ground beside Mabel's lifeless corpse. "I will never lose again."_

Tumnus woke with a sickening start. He'd had the dream again; the dream he hated.

He hated it because it was a memory, pretty much as it had truly happened, rather than the kind of nightmare one could wake up from, sigh, "It's all right, it was only a bad dream," and then relax as the relief of waking in a world that was entirely unlike the terrible vision set in. Waking from _those_ kinds of dreams could be so soothing that it was nearly worth having the night-terror in the first place, just for that feeling of over-whelming contentedness that followed. Not so when it came to memories that haunted the subconscious.

It was an unspoken educated guess (more or less confirmed by Jadis on a number of occasions) that the surviving Traitor who had once been Mabel's cousin and best friend was Edmund's-and, thus, probably Raynbi's-father, but it had somehow become a taboo subject; they _never_ spoke about it. Edmund's mind seemed to close off, unable to process a single word, the second anything to do with the man who mostly likely sired him was brought up, and it pained Tumnus too greatly to talk extensively about the first group of Traitors; he never could come to terms with how he'd failed to save them.

As far as any of the current Traitors were concerned, there was nothing before them; they were it. That mentality, even if it would seem, to an outsider, narrow-minded and self-centered, made it a little easier to cope.

Only Tumnus, who's heart would not let him forget the original tragedy entirely, worried about something as 'trivial' as history repeating itself.

In his earliest attempts to protect Edmund, he had even, at one point, thought it best if the boy did not associate with Ammi or Eustace while in Charn, cut himself off emotionally from the both of them, only speaking to them as a trained actor on missions away from the castle, lest one of them should become the next 'Mabel'. But, through observation, it became abundantly clear that that simply wasn't going to happen, that the dynamics in this group were vastly different from the first, and the easiest way to maintain a level of semi-sanity between _these_ traitors was to make them as close to being a family of sorts as possible.

Besides, the lively child who ran up and down the beach at age five vehemently refusing to put his clothes back on, was just going to talk to whomever he wanted, _whenever_ he wanted, and there was no stopping that. Edmund's favorite word as a toddler had been the same one Tumnus would have dearly loved to give him a sound spanking for constantly over-using but never could bring himself to: "No!"

The faun rose from his bed and began to pace the length of his room, his goat-hooves clicking on the wooden floor, muffled only when they passed over a rug or carpeted area.

It appeared to be around four in the morning and the sun was not yet up. A grainy bit of, very white, moonlight sliced through the partly open curtains.

They had to leave soon. They were already staying too long with the Ramandus. Tumnus had the feeling if they didn't stop stalling and betray Lucy P. quickly, they would never be able to. He himself couldn't stop thinking about the time she had tea with him and picked up his father's portrait, and talked about books. His own broken whisper echoed in his mind: how could he give Lucy up to the witch now that he knew what she was like? He wasn't proud of his role in bringing the other demistars before her to harm, but neither had he felt a personal attachment to any of them on their own merits. But Lucy... No, they had to get it over with fast. If Edmund should start to like her for real (which, ever since he had overreacted to 'having to betray the future queen', Tumnus had begun to strongly believe was already the case) and begin to play with the notion of somehow saving her from the witch, everything could fall apart and collapse right into their laps.

Jadis would never allow them to double-cross her; _never_.

If Jadis could kill Mabel, who was a fairly loyal traitor over-all, what might she do to them for trying to save Lucy?

No, he was so close-so very close. Soon he would have gotten himself and all three of the current Traitors their freedom. They couldn't give up now. Not even for Lucy could Tumnus forsake his plan to get Edmund through this in one piece, to see him leave the witch's service in one piece without becoming an evil lunatic in the process. It wouldn't change what happened, but deep down Tumnus believed it would somehow set things right in a small way; and was the only hope he allowed for himself after seeing so much suffering.

Yes, Lucy was extraordinarily kind and didn't deserve the fate she was headed for, thanks to them. And, yes, he was a terrible faun; his father would be extremely disappointed in how he'd turned out, bringing innocents to harm by way of occupation. And yet, there was nothing that could be done to change it, even if he wanted to. Even if he went completely mad and decided to finally let go of the last shred of hope and risk everything, no good could come of it.

"It's too late for that now," Tumnus whispered to himself brokenly, standing still by the window for a moment and burying his face in his hands.

Edmund, in contrast, slept better that night than he had in a long while.

At first he thought he wouldn't be able to get to sleep, thinking about Lucy and how confused and muddled everything had become since he'd put that line of red ink on her forehead and kissed her at Aravis and Cor's wedding earlier that night, but then an inward wave of calm tiredness swept over him and he fell into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.

Then morning came and he woke to sunlight pouring in through the curtains he had forgotten to shut before climbing into bed, too lost in thought, and he got up, feeling oddly cheerful.

As there had been every morning since Lucy showed him that she could charm bees, a glass jar of honey with a note tied to it was outside of his door.

They had gotten into a little routine, himself and Lucy, with the honey jars. She would leave the full ones in the mornings, the note attached usually reading, _Good morning, Ed_ , and, come nighttime, he would leave the empty jars in their place for her to take back, with a note that said, _Goodnight, Lu_.

This morning was no different. There was the jar, and the note, waiting for him.

A smile spread across his face as he opened it. It only said good morning, as usual, but there was a small snowdrop from the garden rolled into the paper.

Beaming, Edmund put the stem of the little flower into the button-hole of the short gray flannel coat he was wearing over his doublet.

Tumnus and Ammi turned up by his door, asking if he was coming to breakfast with them.

To which, he replied in a dazed, quiet voice that he supposed breakfast would be nice.

"Are you on Toffee-Leaves again?" Ammi demanded, unnerved by his sudden tranquility.

"I thought I told you before, your favorite flowers are meant to be _roses_ , same as Lucy's," Tumnus put in, in a low voice so no one could over-hear if they came by that way unexpectedly, motioning at the snowdrop in his button-hole. "So why are you wearing a snowdrop on your coat?"

"You know what, Tumnus?" Edmund sighed, cocking his head to the left and continuing to smile in rather a demented fashion. "I have a feeling Lucy likes snowdrops." He patted the faun on the shoulder dismissively, then practically, for lack of a more fitting term, _skipped_ down the hallway.

"Tumnus," said Ammi slowly, crinkling her brow and squinting, puzzled, at Edmund's departing back; "just now...was he... _humming_?"

"What _is_ he so happy about?" Tumnus murmured, a touch crankily, understandably still shaken from his nightmare.

Breakfast was a surprisingly quiet affair. Eustace had a dreamy, dazed expression on his face as well, and whenever he bothered to open his mouth, it was to share some fact about Jill Pole that they really couldn't have cared less about. Normally, this would have resulted in Edmund hitting his cousin, or signaling Tumnus to hit him-or at the very least kick his leg under the table until he bloody well shut up-but this morning he was lost to the world.

He gave offhanded answers he couldn't remember three seconds after the responses died on his lips to whatever Susan was asking him; only to find out, via a number of strange looks from everyone at the table, with the exceptions of Lucy and Eustace, she had been imploring him to please pass the butter for the past three minutes with no result.

Finally, Peter had to lean across the table and pass it to her himself, a little huffily.

Edmund still didn't notice, he was too busy lifting up the button-hole of his coat ever so slightly so that Lucy, sitting across from him, could see the snowdrop she'd given him. He had once told her he didn't have a favorite flower, and at the time it had been true, only now, after this morning, he had a feeling he was going to grow exceedingly fond of snowdrops, though he had never cared for them before.

Lucy recognized the flower, beamed at him, and looked shyly down at her plate.

Later that day, she sat at a table in the library, a book she hadn't even glanced at the title of open in front of her. It had been on the same page for almost an hour, and Lucy still wasn't sure what the content of it was.

Peter and Susan were also in the library, sitting a few feet away from her in big upholstered chairs; Susan was trying to teach herself to read Ettinsmoor-Latin, and Peter was pouring over a medical journal written by some chap who'd lived in Cair Paravel nearly a century ago.

"Peter?" said Lucy softly.

"What's up, Lu?" He closed the book with part of his hand still in it, using his index-finger as a bookmark.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure." Peter smiled at her encouragingly. He had been wondering what she was thinking of, as she seemed rather distant and absent-minded, but had been in no hurry to demand she tell him. He already had one sister who's thoughts he knew without trying, it was sort of nice, so long as Lucy wasn't in any immediate danger or trouble, in which case he wanted to know straight away so he could help her, to have to wait until she was ready to approach him unpressed.

"How does one know if one is betrothed or not?" Lucy's cheeks went a little red.

Peter almost choked on his own spit. "You don't need to know about engagements and all that rot until you're much, much older, Lucy," he told her, when he finally regained control of himself.

"Peter!" Susan cut in, looking up at him with an expression of mild annoyance. "She's fifteen. Don't be so pig-headed." In a lower voice, but still loudly enough that Peter would have heard it even if it weren't for the connection they shared, "Don't feel too badly, Lucy. When _we_ were fifteen, he told me I couldn't go courting until after I was married!"

Lucy giggled. "How would that even work?"

"I don't think it was even supposed to." Susan pouted melodramatically, giving Peter the stink-eye.

Peter rolled his eyes at his twin. "But, just out of curiosity, Lu, why do you ask?"

"I..." Lucy dropped eye-contact with her brother. "I think I might be betrothed."

" _What_?" Peter's brow furrowed and his face went very white; he jumped up from his chair, dropping the book.

Susan's facial expression became a little stunned as well. "To _who_ , Lucy?"

"Edmund Maugrim," she sort of murmured, feeling suddenly uneasy under their undivided gaze of intense attention.

"No," snapped Peter, grinding his teeth, speaking more to himself than to Lucy. "He can't possibly be that stupid."

"I'd say there's a good chance he _is_ ," muttered Susan. Then, in a nicer voice, she said to Lucy, "Did Mr. Maugrim ask you to marry him?"

"N-no..." she stammered. "Not exactly...but he..."

"He what, Lucy?" Peter pressed anxiously.

Lucy shook her head. "Nothing."

"Lucy, dear, it's very important that you tell us exactly what happened." Susan tried to stay calm since she could sense Peter was about to explode.

"I don't know," Lucy said feebly. "I was trying to figure that out myself." She put her fingers to her forehead, briefly touching the place where the line of red ink had been. "I think I might be betrothed," she said again.

"You're not," said Peter, very worried about the fact that Lucy wouldn't say _why_ she thought she was betrothed to Edmund. She had never been one to withhold information from him. "You're most certainly not, and I'm afraid Mr. Maugrim isn't going to be staying with us any longer, so there you have it."

Lucy frowned. "Edmund didn't say anything about leaving." He wouldn't leave without telling her, would he?

"You're right," Peter said, a little too harshly, "he didn't. _I_ did. I'm going to ask him to get his things together and be out of this mansion by the end of the day."

"But why?" cried Lucy, aghast. "Did he do something wrong?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, he did, and I'm rather put-out with him."

"Peter," Susan said quietly, tapping her twin brother on he shoulder, "perhaps we should think about this for a moment before we start evicting guests."

"Susan, stay out of this."

"I'm just trying to be realistic," she said sullenly.

"No, you're trying to be _smart_ ," he snapped impatiently. "As usual!"

"Don't worry, Su," said Lucy, suddenly appearing oddly serene. "I'll be all right."

"I'm glad you won't be too pained over this, Lucy," Peter told her, exhaling sharply. "I was worried about that."

"I don't believe I'll be _pained_ , exactly," Lucy said slowly, blinking thoughtfully; "very sorry to leave home, I suppose. And I'll miss you and father and Clara and everyone dreadfully. You will let me visit, though, won't you, Peter?" She looked at him with a white, steadfast little face that was trying very hard to be brave.

"Whatever are you talking about, Lucy?" Peter wanted to know. "I don't understand. Why in Aslan's name would you have to leave home?"

"If Edmund leaves, I'm going with him," she said innocently, as if she thought it quite obvious. "If he wants me, I mean."

Susan looked appalled. "You can't mean you're going to just _ask_ him if he wants to marry you?"

"I don't see why not." She shrugged, wishing at this point that she had done so in the first place instead of asking her brother how a person went about being betrothed.

"That's not how it's done." Susan clucked her tongue. "The man is supposed to ask, very directly and nicely, then wait patiently for your answer."

"Lucy, Susan, both of you stop it," Peter growled. "Have you both lost your marbles? Susan, shut up. Lucy, you are _not_ being thrown out of your own home." He hated it when she looked at him with her face screwed up like that. "The fact of the matter is, you can't marry Edmund."

"Why not? Don't you like him?"

"It's not a matter of liking him," said Peter, even though-at the moment-he wasn't liking him quite as much as he might have under different circumstances. "You're fifteen, Lucy, and he has a child."

"What's wrong with that? I like children." Lucy couldn't help looking a tad uncharacteristically sullen. She was very fond of Paddy, and thought it would be mean to make out that the poor child who hadn't done a thing wrong was the reason she wouldn't marry his father if he asked her.

"You can't be a mother, you're too young."

"He's already got a mother," said Lucy; and thought, privately, _even if she doesn't seem to pay him much attention_. "But I could be his friend, as well as his father's wife."

She sounded so sure of herself, so unlike the shaken, blushing child who only a few moments ago was flittering about in a dreamy manner, trying to figure out if she was even engaged or not in the first place, that Peter was startled for a second and stared at her blankly, as if trying to find the child Lucy-little Lucy-he knew in this young lady's stubborn face.

When he found he could speak again, Peter said, "You're right, Paddy _has_ got a mother. And what about her? What if Edmund decides..." His voice trailed off.

That stung; Lucy bit her lower lip. "I don't think he will." But, deep down, there was still a shred of nagging fear pertaining to just that possibility.

"I don't want to see you hurt." There were tears swimming around in the corners of her elder brother's eyes; he was frightened for her.

"Edmund would never hurt me." If nothing else, she felt fairly certain of that much.

"Lucy, Peter has a point," Susan said, in spite of the fact that Peter had told her to shut up, figuring he wouldn't mind her speaking up now, since she was mostly agreeing with him. "It wouldn't be practical for you to marry Mr. Maugrim. You're going to be queen of Narnia one day; do you really want a Toffee-Leaf addict ruling as king alongside you?"

"He doesn't chew them anymore." She glared daggers at her sister for that comment. Yes, Edmund had made a mistake, chewing Toffee-Leaves, but he was recovering; Susan _knew_ that.

"The best thing for you would be to let him leave now," Peter advised her. "I mean, he's going to leave eventually anyway; he told me so himself. He told me to my face that one day he is going to walk out and not come back. Lucy, think for a moment, think really hard. Do you honestly want a husband who plans on leaving?"

"I told you," said Lucy, "I would go with him."

"You'll be miserable with him!" exclaimed Peter, nearly shouting at the top of his voice, but not angrily, simply not knowing how else to make her understand.

"I'll be more miserable without him," countered Lucy.

Peter closed his eyes and fell back into his chair, putting a hand to his forehead.

"Peter?" Lucy inched towards his chair.

In a weak voice, he croaked, hoarsely, "Will he make you happy?"

"Very happy." Lucy nodded.

Looking up, removing his hand, Peter whispered brokenly, "Then I give you my blessing."

"Oh, Peter, thank you!" She threw her arms around him and hugged her brother from the side.

"I'm making a huge mistake, I know I am," sighed Peter, slumping down into the chair as if he were an old, old man. "I just can't bear to see you unhappy, Lu."

"You have no problem seeing _me_ unhappy," muttered Susan, only half-joking.

He waved that off, too weakened from draining emotions to bother getting into another quarrel with her. "You bring Edmund in here." He untangled himself from Lucy's embrace. "I want to talk to him."

So Lucy went to find Edmund. She came across him at last, sitting on the entertainment room floor with Paddy, who was refusing to wear his socks and seemed to think it utterly hilarious when a still somewhat absent-minded Edmund said, "Oof!" involuntarily after being hit in the face by a stuffed animal.

She put her hand to her mouth to repress her own laughter. She knew it wasn't good to encourage misbehavior in babies, but it _was_ a little funny.

"Hey, Lu." Edmund stood up, grinning at her.

Lucy suddenly felt a little embarrassed. What if she was wrong? What if they weren't really betrothed at all? What if he didn't want to marry her, and looked at Peter like he had five heads when he talked to him about the matter?

She tucked a piece of hair behind one ear and took a step forward. There was no getting around it now. She must simply press on, even if everything turned out wrong.

Unfortunately, nobody told Lucy that, when pressing on, though it is a good thing in theory to hold one's head high, it never hurts to actually look down occasionally to see where one is stepping, and she tripped over the edge of the rug, lost her balance, and almost fell flat on her face.

Edmund caught her, of course, but, lurching backwards while doing so, he accidentally tripped over one of the stuffed animals Paddy had been hurling around and fell flat on his back, Lucy on top of him.

"Now this seems familiar," murmured Edmund, remembering when they'd landed in a similar manner on the balcony when Lucy was trying to 'save' him from Dragon-Eustace.

Lucy laughed nervously. "Doesn't this hurt your back?" That time on the balcony, she hadn't known about the whip-marks, but she was well aware of them now.

He sighed. "Not nearly as much as Griffin Rider training does."

"Edmund," she said, her tone a little more serious, "Peter wants to talk to you."

Edmund gulped; the cheerful, almost giddy, emotion that had been over-powering him all day, started to dwindle. "He does?"

"I'm sorry," said Lucy. "It's my fault."

He seemed to understand. Masking his fear that he was about to be tossed out on his bum, Edmund reached up and stroked the side of her face. "It'll be all right."

"I need to ask you something first." Lucy gathered her courage. "Are we betrothed?"

"Do you want to be?" He found himself holding his breath, anticipating her answer.

"Yes." Her voice came out as a small, strangled happy-sob.

"Me too," he said softly.

She lowered her head and kissed him on the mouth.

When she pulled back, he laughed, "Not in front of the kid, Lu."

She realized Paddy was watching them, and stood up, smoothing out her clothes. "Oh, sorry."

" _I'm_ not," Edmund teased, slowly getting up himself. Then, grimacing, "Though, I'm guessing I will be once your brother is through with me."

"He's given his blessing," Lucy told him quietly.

"You're joking." You could have knocked Edmund over with a feather. He didn't know if he should be impressed with Peter or else disappointed in him; it was all too confusing.

She shook her head. "No, it's true."

"I'll come as soon as I leave Paddy with Tumnus, all right?"

"Sure, I'll wait outside the library doors."

He bent down and scooped up the child, who in turn started howling because he was being taken out of the room so shortly after Lucy had come into it. "All right, see you in a little while."

Peter was stern-faced when Lucy re-entered the library, Edmund right behind her, but he grudgingly told Edmund that he would not be asked to leave the mansion after all.

"I'm still very upset with you for blatantly disobeying my orders, Edmund," he added, in a low tone, almost a growl. "However, I'm willing to over-look that, if you intend to take good care of my sister and, in the future, my country."

Edmund felt this was becoming very serious indeed. For, up till that exact moment, in spite of the fact that the knowledge that he would have been betraying a queen if he had gone and led Lucy to Jadis as planned was very clear to him, the notion that he would be king of Narnia if he married her hadn't dawned on him.

A king...how was he supposed to be that? A king-any king-led a very public life, and as an ex-traitor, he would be wise to keep a low profile, especially since somebody in Galma obviously knew exactly who he was.

"Isn't there...I don't know...some way to...to just have Lucy on the throne, even if she's married?" Edmund stammered, blinking awkwardly. "I mean, I'm not sure I would even qualify to be a king-of anywhere, really."

"Well, Lucy," said Peter dryly, nearly chuckling but not quite, "at least we know he isn't marrying you for a position at court."

Susan sighed. "We'll have to wait and see how things go, I suppose."

"That said," Peter went on, "you told me you were leaving, Edmund."

"Change of plans," Edmund said quickly. He had planned on leaving-and leading Lucy on a wild goose chase to Charn-but not anymore. Jadis was _not_ going to have her, and if Peter was withdrawing his objections, then he was bloody well going to stay here and get married, whatever anyone-the other Traitors included-had to say about it. "In fact, I'm never letting Lucy go." He reached out and put his arm around who he thought was Lucy, standing on his left (she was actually standing on his _right_ , however).

"That's nice," said Peter, a tad insincerely. "But can you please let _Susan_ go?"

"Oh, bother." So much for a dramatic gesture. Edmund let go of Susan, nodded apologetically, then looked over at Lucy, who's shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter. "Anyway, I'm not leaving."

"Hunting and Publishing going well, then?" said Susan, airily, but with a slight edge to her voice. "I hadn't known the Lantern Waste was so thriving in its businesses."

Edmund forced himself to keep a straight face and not so much as half-wince. But he did wonder if Susan suspected him of having lied about his occupation. He would have to tell Lucy at least that that wasn't true eventually, but as this was all happening so fast, he hadn't worked out _how_ just yet.

"Oh, and before we officially agree to, or announce, anything," Peter chimed in, picking something up and walking towards Edmund with it, "I'm going to need a urine sample." He held it out to him; it was a cup. "Just to be sure you're healthy enough for marriage."

Lucy made a face, and Susan gasped, "Oh, Peter!" in an appalled tone.

"Is this really necessary?" Edmund asked.

"I'm your physician, don't argue with me."

"Isn't that one of the cups we drink from?" demanded Susan, looking as if she were about to be sick.

"Not anymore it isn't," said Peter.

"I'm not peeing in this," Edmund snapped, thrusting the cup back at Peter.

Susan let out a prudish gasp. "By the Lion, Mr. Maugrim! You shouldn't speak of bodily functions in such a common, vulgar term when there's ladies present."

Lucy moaned and covered her face with her hands, but her shoulders still shook, giving away that there was a trace of amusement mixed in with the mortification she was feeling.

"Very well," Peter said coolly. "In that case, we're done here, and I will conveniently 'forget' to mention this betrothal business to our father. No announcement will be made, and we can pretend none of this ever happened."

Lucy's hands were by her sides now, and she was frowning.

Sighing, Edmund took the cup back from Peter's out-stretched hand. "Fine."

"That's what I thought." Peter's face unfolded into something between a grimace and a smirk. "And don't fill it with apple juice, I know that trick."

That night, Lucy stopped by the door of Edmund's room and picked up the empty honey jar.

As always, she untied the note and read it there in the dim glow of the hallway's small rush light that was to be snuffed out within the hour.

_Goodnight, Lu._


	20. Taverns & Bad Dreams

"What do you think you're doing?" Edmund asked Tumnus grumpily, after walking into his room only to find every article of clothing he owned dumped onto the middle of his bed.

"Close the door behind you," said Tumnus shortly.

Rolling his eyes, cranky because his plans for an afternoon nap were impeded, Edmund stomped over to the door and latched it. "There. Now why the devil are you rummaging through my things?" He looked despairingly at all of the open draws and the open closet, getting a bad feeling.

"I'm helping you pack," the faun said simply, shrugging his bare shoulders. "You always wait until the last minute and we're already over-due for departure."

"Departure?" echoed Edmund.

"To _Charn_ ," whispered Tumnus pointedly, grabbing a pair of hose off of the mess on the bed, rolling them into a ball, and tossing them into an open knapsack. "I heard from Clara that you and Lucy are planning to announce a betrothal; so I'm guessing that means we don't have to spend any more time here trying to get her to like you."

Edmund sat down in a chair by the unlit fireplace. The moment of truth had arrived; he had to tell Tumnus about his change of plans-change of heart, really. But it wasn't going to be easy, telling his mentor he was done doing the witch's bidding.

"I have to admit, at first I thought a betrothal was a little excessive," Tumnus went on, folding some doublets he was fairly certain Edmund had already had before coming to the mansion, "but I suppose there isn't any real harm done, even if it is a little unorthodox for one of our methods."

"It isn't a method," said Edmund, almost in a mumble.

"Do you want to keep these tunics Peter gave you or do you think we should leave them be-" Tumnus stopped, registering what Edmund had just said. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, it wasn't part of my plan."

"You always were a bit too careless when winging these things." The faun clicked his tongue. "So, we'll have to summon the witch tonight, to give her a progess report and tell her we're on our way back and that Lucy will definitely be coming after you."

"No." Edmund shook his head. "I'm done with witchcraft."

"Done? You can't be done, not until she sets us free."

"I quit," he said softly, looking down at his own hands. "I'm just _done_. I won't give Lucy to Jadis, Tumnus, I can't."

Tumnus went so pale and swayed so jarringly that Edmund thought he was going to faint; but he steadied himself on the bed-post and stood gaping and gawking at the traitor he'd spent years preparing for this very moment, when there was only one mission left and it was coming to an end, haplessly. "You don't have that choice, Ed, none of us do."

"The betrothal's _real_ , Tumnus," Edmund told him, looking up and staring him in the eye now. "It's not a scam, or a method. I'm going to stay here and marry her."

"You _can't_ ," Tumnus faltered, unsure of how to make him see reason.

"Watch me," said Edmund, determinedly, but in a softer, milder voice than might have been expected.

"Jadis will never let you do this." Tumnus let go of the bed-post, reached out, and gripped Edmund's shoulders, giving him a light shake. "Look at me." He gulped back what might have been the beginning stages of a strangled sob. "You know I care about Lucy, too...far more than I should... But you also know why sparing her is not an option. Jadis will never let us get away with this."

"Well, I wasn't asking her permission." Edmund's facial expression tightened and grew cold and hard with fury.

"When she comes for you, do you really think that will matter?"

"I don't know. All I know is, I can't give Lucy up...not to _her_..."

"The white witch gave orders!" Tumnus released his grip on Edmund's shoulders. "You marrying the half-blood star in question will do nothing to change them. You can't protect Lucy Ramandu any better as husband than you can as a friend."

Edmund shook his head. "I know; that's not why I'm marrying her." A bittersweet smile flickered in his eyes and the corners of his lips for a split-second before fading dimly due to the dark seriousness of the whole matter. "I'm in love with her."

Tumnus just stared at him, his face crestfallen. "Oh, Edmund! You let yourself fall in love with her?"

He snorted lightly. "I can't say I _let_ myself do anything; it just happened that way."

"This is a pretty kettle of fish," muttered the faun, speaking more to himself than Edmund. "I suppose I'll have to tell Eustace and Ammi the news."

"No," said Edmund. "I'll do it. I'm the one who's quit on them."

As might have been expected, the reactions of Eustace and Ammi upon hearing Edmund's new resolve to stay in Narnia, in the Lantern Waste, in spite of the witch and the threatening notes from Galma, were vastly different.

Eustace just sort of gawked at his cousin; it was one of those rare times in his life when he was at a complete loss for words. On the one hand, he was furious his cousin was risking all of their lives and chances at freedom without even asking them if they were on board; but, on the other, he didn't want to leave Narnia, either. Jill Pole lived in Narnia, after all. And Lucy was the future queen; they could never come back after betraying her. Furthermore, while he didn't care about Lucy quite so much as Edmund and Tumnus did, he was beginning to like her; it was hard not to, especially as she was always so kind to him, even when he was being his bossiest and most annoying.

Ammi had no lack of words to hold her back. She was so angry, in fact, that she broke character and dropped her Narnian accent altogether, screaming at Edmund in her natural voice. How dare he turn on them like that! And on their last mission, too!

"Hush, hush," tried Tumnus, gesturing urgently with his hands. "Keep your voice down. Even with the door shut and latched, someone will hear you shrieking like that, Ammi."

"Edmund, how can you do this to us?" she demanded.

He had been about to tell her off, provoked by her angry rant, but the tears he saw in her brown eyes made him hesitate. He'd known Ammi long enough to be able to tell, wonderful actress though she was, when she was crying despairingly for real and when she was only shaming or being over-dramatic to get her own way in something; and she wasn't faking now. There was a quiver of honest fear shaking under her angry, heavily accented tone.

"Ammi, please try to understand," Edmund finally managed, keeping his tone level by clenching his jaw slightly. "I can't do this anymore."

"It's _one_ more time," she cried. "We're so close! I'm tired of living in Charn. I want to go home-no, I want to find out if I even _have_ a home!"

Edmund folded his arms across his chest. "Ammi, if you wanted to leave Charn so badly, you would have run away with me when I asked you to."

"I want to be free for _real_ ," she countered hotly, "not have a witch and her minions nipping at my heels like hell-hounds for the rest of my life. And, let me just say, I think you're a bloody idiot, falling in love with a demistar."

"You didn't think so in the library," Edmund snapped back.

"Well, I didn't know your first love was _Coriakin's daughter_ , I thought it was a Griffin Rider or a milkmaid or something." Ammi shrugged. "I thought you were too smart to ruin everything like this."

Edmund's blood began to boil; Ammi was really peeving him off, genuine tears or no. It didn't help that there was so much obvious emphatic disdain-even disgust-in her voice when she said 'Coriakin's daughter'. His lips curled up into a sneer. "And I thought you were too smart to get yourself pregnant, but I have two sets of whip-marks on my back that prove the contrary."

Ammi unceremoniously smacked him across the face. Then, putting her aching hand to her mouth, she ran to the door, unlatched it, and all but threw herself out of the room, sobbing.

"Brilliantly handled, Cousin," remarked Eustace.

"She was begging me to," Edmund muttered, rubbing the flaming cheek she'd struck.

"I'll be right back, I'm going to make sure she's all right." Tumnus left the room, took a few steps down the hallway, and eventually found Ammi crouched behind a tall decorative plant.

"I don't want to talk," Ammi told him, standing up and swallowing hard, getting ready to walk away.

"Where are you going?"

"To find a tavern," she said. "I need a drink."

"Ammi, you shouldn't... We need to figure things out."

" _We_ don't need to figure anything out," Ammi retorted. "Why don't you have Edmund make all the plans, come-go as he pleases, and pass on the message when he feels ready? He's good at that."

"Leaving you behind in Charn wasn't any of our faults, especially not Edmund's," Tumnus said firmly. "And I know it's not my place to say this, but I think after all he's done for you, maybe it's time you did something for him."

"You're right," snorted Ammi, taking a few steps further and looking back over her shoulder at the concerned faun. "It's not your place."

"This doesn't mean it's over," he whisper-called. "We'll figure something out!"

"I'm going to find that tavern." She shook her head. "Try to talk some sense into him-unless you suddenly have a death wish, too. I'll be back later."

On her way out the front doors, she crossed paths with Lucy, coming back inside accompanied by a couple of elderly, somewhat senile, Dufflepuds that had wandered off and ended up on a neighbouring property by accident (she'd had to go get them), who gave her a polite smile.

"Oh, spare me," Ammi sneered, storming out the doors and making sure at least one of them slammed loudly behind her, causing a din that would disturb anyone who happened to be in the front area of the mansion.

"What's the matter with her?" Lucy asked Eustace, taken aback.

Eustace had followed a ways behind Ammi after Tumnus came back to Edmund's room, and was now standing on the staircase. "She heard about your betrothal to Edmund," he said, shrugging one shoulder.

"You're betrothed?" one of the Dufflepuds asked, giving her an impish smile.

"When people are betrothed," said the other Dufflepud, without even giving Lucy a half-second to answer, "they're going to be married. And if they're going to be married, they will be wed."

"Right you are!" cried the first Dufflepud. "Couldn't have put it better myself."

Lucy felt a sudden wave of indignation. If Ammi wanted Edmund, she could have married him long before, all the more so considering she'd had his child, but she hadn't, and now she felt the need to be unpleasant with _her_ , to grudge her engagement to him? That didn't seem fair.

She furrowed her brows and thought it over for a moment, then moved on. There were things she needed to be doing, and the Dufflepuds needed to be directed back to their family in the servants' quarters; she couldn't stand there all day just because a guest she barely knew was cross with her.

By the time evening set in and Ammi was still not back, Edmund decided to go out and look for her. Tumnus tried to dissuade him, saying he would gladly go, but Edmund shook his head; he felt like taking a walk anyhow.

When he reached the tavern and, through the window, saw Ammi sitting at one of the tables, drinking a tall glass of ale (three empty glasses on the table in front of her), he walked in, pulled out the chair next to hers, and plopped down beside her.

"Hey, Princess."

Ammi squinted at him. "Edmund?" she slurred, uncertainly-as if anyone else had ever called her that.

"How drunk are you right now, on a scale of one to ten?" Edmund wanted to know. "One being mildly tipsy, ten being Governor Gumpas every day except second Saturdays between nine and ten P.M."

"Uh..." She peered down with one eye half-closed into the now empty fourth glass of ale. "Two?" A wave of nausea rushed through her. "No, maybe it's closer to three. It _did_ take me a minute to recognize you."

A tavern wench with her dark blonde curls in a lace cap, dressed in a peasant gown with a white smock, her neckline a little too low for comfort, approached their table. "Hallo, lovelies, can I get you anything?" To Ammi, she added, "Else?"

Edmund considered for a moment. "A pint and a pie."

The wench paused. "A pint?"

"Of beer?" Edmund clarified, arching an eyebrow. "And a cold pork pie."

"Ah, yes," she said, slapping her forehead with the side of her left hand. "I'll be right out with it."

"I want another glass of ale," Ammi mumbled to her empty glass.

Edmund caught hold of the tavern girl's arm. "Make sure it's a _ginger_ ale," he whisper-hissed when she inclined her ear. "She's had more than enough." He had a feeling that if he didn't put a stop to Ammi's drinking, he was going to end up having to literally _carry_ her back to the mansion.

After a few minutes, Ammi burped, then started crying inconsolably.

"Ammi?" Edmund put his arm on her shoulder.

"I'm a terrible person!" she wailed.

"Oh, come off it, you're not that bad." He managed a small smile. "You're almost likeable some of the time."

She only sobbed harder. "No, I'm horrible. I don't even like children. I have one and I can't even _look_ at him!" Putting her head down on the table, she cry-added, "What kind of sick person hates _children_? And..." She started slurring her words again, with a slight stutter on the letter 'p'. "Oh...I've just realized, I don't like dogs, either. I hate p-puppies! What sort of cruel p-person hates p-p-puppies?"

"You don't hate puppies," Edmund laughed. "And lots of people don't like dogs."

"No," Ammi sniffled. "I'm dreadful. I've hurt so...so...so many people..."

"We all have," he reminded her softly. "You, me, Tumnus, Eustace..."

"That's right!" Ammi exclaimed, unexpectedly lifting her head up from the table and throwing her arms around him. " _You're_ a terrible person, too!"

"Golly," said Edmund, awkwardly, noticing that the few people in the tavern who weren't drunk or otherwise occupied were starting to look at them funny, " _thanks_." He patted her back (well, to be more exact, the open palm of his hand sort of lightly smacked her shoulder-blade). "There, there."

Ammi just kept sobbing into his collarbone.

"I know you and I don't hug a lot," said Edmund slowly, when five minutes had gone by and she was still holding onto him, "so maybe I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, but how long are these friendly embraces actually supposed to last for?"

"Hey," she said, pulling away from him at last, "can I ask you something? Something really serious?"

"Sure," he said, though frankly he doubted her ability to discuss truly serious subjects with a level head while intoxicated. "I'm game, I guess."

"You really want to get married?"

"Yeah," said Edmund, thinking of Lucy; he still couldn't believe they were betrothed for real. "More than I've ever wanted anything."

"If I told you I changed my mind," she said, surprisingly coherent for a drunk girl, at least for the time being, "and that I'll marry you and help raise Paddy, would you reconsider risking everything? Would you..."

She didn't have to finish; he understood her sincere but still half-hearted proposal perfectly. She was volunteering, in spite of the fact that they didn't love each other, to marry him so that he would betray Lucy to Jadis as they had planned; so that they-all of the Traitors-could still earn their freedom.

"Uh...I..." Edmund stammered, his eyelids opening so wide he thought his eyeballs would pop out and bounce around on the table. The answer was so clearly no (contrary to what Ammi seemed to think, he didn't want to be married just for the sake of being married), but after having asked her so many times, always getting a no from _her_ end, it felt incredibly awkward to be the one doing the refusing.

"Here you are, a pint and a pie!" The tavern wench had returned, setting the glass mug of beer and little silver plate with a pork pie in front of him.

"By Aslan!" he exclaimed, his tone borderline emotional. "I don't think I've ever been so happy to see a pie in my life!"

"And your ale, Miss." The tavern wench winked at Edmund, setting a glass of ginger ale in front of Ammi.

They sat there for a while, Edmund never answering her question, keeping his mouth full of beer and pie so he wouldn't be able to. For the first time in his life, instead of wolfing down his food so quickly that it was doubtful he wasn't swallowing it whole, he actually counted how many times he chewed each mouthful, just to have something to occupy his mind.

When the pie and beer were gone, he had the tavern wench bring out a pitcher and give him a refill on the beer.

By the time Tumnus turned up (dismayed that Edmund hadn't come back to the mansion with Ammi after having left several hours ago) they were both sitting there without saying a word, looking miserable.

Ammi did nothing but cry and burp and hiccup by turn; and Edmund, who was not actually drunk, in spite of the fact that he'd had a little more than was good for him, was staring at what he thought for a second there was another person who sort of looked a little like himself, sitting by the wall.

Gosh, he thought, at least I don't look as blood-shot and pathetic as _that_ chap!

Then, slowly, crinkling his forehead, he lifted up his hand, and watched, to his great horror, as the person he had been silently mocking in his head did the same thing just in time with him; it was his reflection! There were no seats over by that wall-only a mirror!

"Oh no," moaned Edmund, closing his eyes, "it's _me_."

When he opened his eyes again, Tumnus was standing there, his arms folded across his bare chest, glowering at them. "What do you think you're doing?" He grabbed Edmund's shoulder. "Just look at that the pair of you! You look like you were in a bar fight!" Then, with widened eyes, " _Were_ you in a bar fight?"

" _I_ wasn't," said Edmund. "I'm not so sure about Ammi." The way she was going, she was going to end up picking a fight with, or else throwing herself sobbing into the arms of, the next living thing that moved near her.

"Come on." Tumnus pulled out their chairs with their bottoms still in them. "Up, now. We're going back to the mansion; let's hope no one sees either of you like this."

"Is that how I look _every_ time I drink?" Edmund asked, pointing at his reflection. If this was how he appeared _tipsy_ , he was glad as anything that the precious few times he'd been truly drunk in his life he hadn't been able to register an accurate image of himself.

"More or less," shrugged Tumnus. "Now, catch hands so I don't have to worry about either of you wandering off and getting run over by a carriage."

Ammi and Edmund glanced at each other, shrugged, and linked hands like small school-children.

" _My_ hands, not each others!" Tumnus barked at them.

"I'm not holding _your_ hand!" Edmund exclaimed, almost shouting. "I am perfectly capable of walking back on my own." He stood up, letting go of Ammi's hand; his knees buckled unevenly and he fell flat on his face on the tavern floor.

The tavern wench came back and smiled, not seeming at all bothered by the fact that Edmund was on the floor. Very likely, she had seen such things, and worse, enough times not to be phased. "Anything else? More pie, perhaps?"

"I think, Madam," said Tumnus pointedly, bending his goat-knees and extending his hand to Edmund, "a big slice of humble pie is next on the menu."

Sullenly, Edmund accepted the faun's hand and allowed himself and Ammi to be led by Tumnus as if they were small infants being taught to look both ways before crossing a busy road.

No one saw them come in through a side door, left just the tiniest bit ajar for Clara's cat, who hadn't come back in time for the closing of the kitchens earlier that evening.

Thankful beyond all reason, Tumnus took them both to their rooms and beds; he tucked Ammi in as if she were a little girl again, but Edmund, still somewhat in his senses, flatly refused to be tucked or to let Tumnus latch his door or blow out any rush lights.

That night, Edmund dreamed of Charn.

This was not altogether new, of course, but what frightened him was how realistically cold he felt, and the deep sickening notion in the back of his mind that this was more than just another nightmare.

He saw Jadis, on her ice throne, glaring down at him, quivering in front of her. "Edmund, I asked so little of you."

He wouldn't speak to her, he just stared at her pale, evil face with an expression of disgust and fearful defiance.

"You're going to have to give in and summon me soon, boy." She rose from her throne. "You are, after all, not your own." She stepped down from the dais of greenish-blue ice. "You are my property and you will obey me."

He was afraid to speak, to make any contact with her at all. His only hope, he thought, was maybe if he was able to cut off all ties with the witch and witchcraft in general, she wouldn't be able to hurt him with as great of ease as she would otherwise.

"Oh, I see," said Jadis coldly, circling around him like a vulture and pounding her wand on the floor. "You think you can reclaim yourself by pulling away from me." She bared her teeth at him. "I think you need to be taught a lesson about just how close I am to you-no matter what."

Edmund gulped, feeling weak and frozen stiff.

To his horror, the witch grabbed onto the sleeve of his shirt and ripped it off as easy as if she were tearing a piece of parchment. Then she pulled out a knife with a familiar blade that was of stone, not steel. Grabbing his now bare arm roughly, she made a small cut in his skin; not deep enough to do permanent damage, but deep enough to draw a considerable amount of blood. She made a little line at the top, so that the cut was in the shape of the letter T.

"Do you see that blood?" She grabbed his face and twisted his neck, forcing him to look at his upper arm. "It belongs to _me_ , not you. Until I say otherwise, you use it to do my bidding, or I will make it run out of you by the gallon."

He gritted his teeth, willing himself not to cry.

When she finally let go of him (and he was awfully glad she did, half-thinking she would crack his neck like a twig if she kept it up much longer), she hissed, "Consider this your first warning. If I have to send you a second one, you won't be the only human who will bleed; remember that."

Something soft and gentle touched his forehead and brushed against his hair. He opened his eyes, finding himself in his own bed, Lucy sitting on the edge of it beside him. "You were dreaming again." She had gotten up to get a drink of water and heard him whimpering and moaning loudly in his sleep, coming in to see if he was all right.

"Lucy," he sighed, inhaling deeply.

"It must have been awful," said Lucy, seeing that he didn't look much better for having woken up.

He nodded and put his head down in her lap.

"It's all right," whispered Lucy, stroking his hair. "It's over now."

No, it wasn't, and he was scared it never would be, no matter what he did. But he had Lucy right now, comforting him, and he wished he could just stay for ever like this and never have to move or think or dream or plot again.

"Edmund, you're bleeding." Lucy furrowed her brow. "What happened to your night-shirt?"

Sitting up, he strained to see his upper arm, and almost fainted from sheer terror. The sleeve the witch had ripped off in his dream was gone, and he was bleeding exactly where she'd cut him.


	21. Garden Attack

It wasn't easy, but Edmund had managed to convince Lucy that his bleeding shoulder had been nothing more than a simple accident.

The fact that he'd had a dagger in his bed the night he mistakenly took her for Jadis in his sleep, pulling it on her before he woke up and realized what was going on, helped a little; at least it made his story of sometimes forgetfully leaving sharp objects in his bed somewhat believable. It, naturally, seemed a little odd, he was sure, even to somebody as trusting as Lucy, that such a clean, bloody slash, vaguely resembling the letter T if you cared to look closely enough, was inflicted just by rolling over the sharp edge of an unsheathed dagger while sleeping, but he didn't really have anything else to go with for an official story.

The missing night-shirt sleeve had also presented problems.

The rip was right at the seams, not done delicately in the least, but still too neatly to have been made by a dagger. If it had been the dagger, there would have just been a long tear in his sleeve, not a missing sleeve altogether, and it certainly wouldn't have been at the seams.

The tale he ended up inventing as means of covering that one up till he could figure things out was simply that he 'supposed Eustace or Ammi had cut off the sleeve with scissors as a prank and he-Edmund-had not realized it while changing for bed, being too tired to care'.

Lucy had, in spite of a nagging doubt that made her a little anxious and unsure, largely believed her betrothed's story. She even wondered if, if it _had_ been Ammi who'd stolen the sleeve, she had done it because she was angry he was getting married rather than as an ordinary prank.

Although, honestly, either way, regardless of who did it, Lucy had to admit to herself that she didn't get what was so funny about taking a person's sleeve.

And now, on top of the fact that Edmund had been trying in vain to come up with a new plan for separating himself from the witch's power, Clara had informed him that Peter wished to speak with him in the library again.

"What have I done _now_?" Edmund muttered to himself, getting up and beginning the long walk (he was on the other side of the mansion, a great distance from the library). He wondered if Peter had somehow found out about him coming back tipsy last night, though it seemed highly unlikely. Not that he would put it passed Peter to have ways of finding out every single move he made while in the Lantern Waste.

To his great surprise, however, when he reached the library and let himself in, Peter didn't immediately acknowledge him with a stern look or even a brief warning expression. He was sitting slumped in a high-backed chair by the fire, his sword in its scabbard laid across his lap.

"It looks like the sword of a knight," said Peter softly, almost inaudibly. "Doesn't it?"

"Yeah," said Edmund, cracking a nervous smile. "Are you planning to run me through with it or something?"

Peter finally craned his neck to see who had responded to his question. "Oh, it's you."

"Clara said you wanted to see me," Edmund told him, feeling even more awkward than he would have been being scolded or told off, like he was intruding on something private, even though he was only there because he had been sent for.

"I did?" Peter looked confused for a second; then, "Oh, yes, I wanted to tell you, I ran some tests, your urine sample was clean; you and my sister can set a date for the wedding, if you like."

There was something lacking in Peter's expression and behavior; he wasn't quite himself. Edmund knew that Peter had a problem with depression that caused mood swings, but this was the first time he'd ever personally witnessed one. It was rather dreadful; he was so out of it, lackluster and sad... He would have rather had Peter being stern and unfriendly with him than be like this. Guiltily, he wondered if his betrothal to Lucy had had anything to do with triggering Peter's depression this time around.

As if reading his thoughts, Peter said, "It's not about Lucy."

"Oh." Edmund put his hands behind his back and stood up a little straighter; he didn't know what else to say.

"Sometimes it's not about any one thing in particular," Peter said, turning his head back and glancing down at his sword again. "I was just wondering why I even _have_ this. It's not like I'll ever get to use it."

"It's always good to have a sword...for protection," Edmund pointed out. "Self-defense."

"I don't expect any of my patients to pull a weapon on me," Peter scoffed, not unkindly. "I used to work making these." He ran his fingers along the smooth, coppery material of the scabbard. "I quit. I didn't see any reason to invite temptation into my life." He chuckled, a touch bitterly. "And yet, I kept this sword. I have it with me when I go out. People must think I'm a real joke: a physician walking around with a sword he can't use, like it's some kind of fashionable ornament."

"You _can_ use it, you know how," Edmund said, sort of quietly. "You just don't."

Peter twisted his neck to look at him again.

"It's not the same thing, you know," he added kindly.

Managing a half-smile, Peter said, "Thank you, Edmund."

"Don't mention it."

"Don't tell Lucy I'm depressed again," Peter said; for the first time, his order was more of an honest request or plea instead of something he was demanding. "I don't like her to worry."

"You're depressed?" Edmund widened his eyes and raised his eyebrows, as if it was news to him.

"Thanks, I really appreciate that," said Peter, nodding and starting to stand up, putting the sword down by the fireplace tongs.

"Peter, I know you think I'm not good for Lucy, and maybe you're right, I _have_ done a lot of stupid things in my life," Edmund finally mustered up the courage to say, "but I want you to know I don't like to see her upset, either. I never want to hurt her any more than you do."

Peter closed his eyes, then opened them again, nearly smiling. He was about to say something, when suddenly he let out a sharp cry of pain and gripped the arm of the chair.

"What's wrong?" Edmund hurried towards him.

His legs seemed to give way under him, and he crumpled sideways to the floor, still holding onto the arm of the chair. An unnaturally high-pitched scream came out of his throat.

"Peter?"

There was a ringing in his ears that sounded like a person blowing into an ivory horn and a pain in his side, close to his stomach. "Susan!" he cried, unable to get up. "Susan..."

Edmund crouched down beside Peter and tried to help him back onto his feet.

"Susan..." Peter said again, still holding onto his side, but now gripping Edmund's arm so tightly it went numb instead of clinging to the arm of the chair. "She's hurt. She can't move...she's injured and scared..."

"All right," faltered Edmund, trying to stay calm in spite of a bad feeling falling over him and drenching him like a fifty-foot wave, "where is she?"

"Outside, in the garden..." Peter panted heavily, almost dropping his entire weight onto Edmund involuntarily (which, if he hadn't fought against it, would probably have knocked them both back down onto the floor).

"Take deep breaths." Edmund grabbed a long, gold-plated poker that was near the tongs and Peter's sword and pressed it into Peter's hand. "Here, try to use that as a cane." He assumed Peter would be gladder of that than of being left behind, waiting uselessly, in the library while his twin sister was suffering. "I'll get help."

The first people Edmund ran into after saying, "I'll get help," and going out of the library were Perry and Alexander.

Luckily, Alexander had a bow and arrows, having been on the way to do a little target practice, and Perry had his sword at his hip.

When Edmund hastily informed them about Peter's sudden collapse brought on by his connection to his twin, who was evidently in danger of some dire nature in the garden, they immediately ran as fast as they could for the garden, hoping they would make it in time.

On their way, they passed a few useless Dufflepuds who didn't understand what was happening and started shrieking something about the end of the world and oppression, and that their impending doom was doubtless thanks to Coriakin, because everybody knew he was nothing but an oppressor.

But some good came of their shouting; because Ammi and Polly over-heard (Aravis was still away on her honeymoon).

Ammi ran to the library, just as Peter was leaving it; he was trying to move quickly but had to stop and pant, leaning weakly on the poker, every few seconds. She grabbed the sword from the display she had fought Edmund with and made her way out to the garden along with everybody else.

As for Polly, she signaled a griffin the second she was out of doors. If Edmund had been a very little further along in training, she would have had him summon one too, but, even in a dire emergency such as this, he was not yet ready.

Lucy, as it turned out, was already in the garden with Susan, and when she saw Edmund, she ran to him as fast as her legs would carry her, her face pale and eyes wide with terror.

"What is it?" he asked, pulling her to him protectively. "What's happening?"

Lucy swallowed a sob and pointed over at a huge, ugly creature that had cornered Susan back-first against a tree. "I tried to stop it, but it brushed me aside with its tail!" She had landed on her bottom almost a full foot away from the creature and her sister.

It was the most unnatural, freakish creature Edmund had ever laid eyes on in his life (and that was saying quite a bit); the bat-like thing that had attacked the griffins couldn't hold a candle to this giant, scaly being.

In looks, it was not unlike how some might expect a sea-serpent to appear, with it's stupid, piggish glowing little eyes and dragon-like scales and double rows of very sharp teeth, only it also had forelegs and green scale-covered front paws so that it could walk about on land instead of swimming in an ocean.

In spite of the fact that she was injured, Susan managed to show some spunk and began climbing the tree before the creature could swat at her again or attempt to swallow her whole. Unfortunately, she didn't get much higher than the second branch, and her grip was weak.

Edmund thought she was very stupid not to get higher (the creature's teeth were less than an inch away from one of her dangling feet) or at the very least get a better grip and swing her legs up, as he would have done in her place. Then he realized, by the expression on her white face and the quivering in her wrists and knuckles, that she about to faint; and if she fainted, she'd fall right into the creature's open mouth.

Polly, on her griffin, swooped down and attacked the creature with all she had, but it was actually Alexander, on the ground, who did the most good. Every arrow that came out of Alexander's bow struck the creature good and true, and only one arrow completely glanced off its scales, the rest all piercing its hard skin.

To Edmund's great dismay, the creature did not bleed when its skin was cut; rather, it only let out wisps of smoky green mist from each open wound. To everyone else, the mist meant nothing, but to a Traitor, it sent a clear message: the White Witch is angry, this is your second warning.

Jadis had sent the creature; it was _her_ power that brought it here to Coriakin's pleasure garden.

Perry lopped off what seemed to be a tentacle by the creature's left foreleg, but it disintegrated into cold green mist that blew into Lucy's face and made her cough.

Enraged by Perry and Alexander, the creature left Susan alone and pursued them heatedly, its dry ice nails scraping against the mulch.

Susan fainted, unable to fight it any longer, falling out of the tree and landing in a bed of big stripped purple-and-yellow tulips.

Lucy pulled herself out of Edmund's grip and ran over to her sister, crouching down beside her on her knees. "Susan!"

Alexander suddenly had the wind knocked out of him and was pinned down by the creature, who slashed brutally at his legs and thighs.

Being a small person, he managed to writhe his way out from under the thing twice and to hit it in the face with the bow before the weapon snapped in half under the creature's weight, but if Perry had not thrust his sword into the creature's side, that would have been the end of his twin.

Raynbi, though not a trained fighter, was leaning out of her window and shooting decorative colourful rocks she'd gotten from a porcelain bowl in the corner of the room, by means of a sling-shot of the sort Edmund had taught her to make back when he visited her at the brothel in Calormen.

A few of these small rainbow-rocks glanced off the head of the creature, distracting it long enough for Perry to pull his sword back out. It was covered in dry, cold-to-the-touch, dark greenish grime.

The creature let out a howl and a shrieking, very high-pitched, 'tick-tick-tick' sort of hissing sound, and leered at Perry and Edmund.

To Edmund, it seemed to be speaking, saying actual words; Perry, though, heard nothing but more ticking and a few grunts.

"Give in," hissed the creature, revealing three lizard-like tongues slithering in and out of its mouth as it spoke (or, in Perry's perception of events, made noises). "Jadis has warned you twice now. You give her what she wants, or your blood becomes a new red river in Charn."

"Perry," gasped Edmund, nearly choking on his own saliva, sweat beads rolling down his forehead, "can you hear it?"

"It sounds like a grandfather clock that needs to be wound up," Perry whispered back.

"You don't hear its voice?"

"What voice?"

"What it's saying..."

"I don't think it can speak."

So that was it, then; only a Traitor, someone who had made contact with the queen of Charn and had a connection to witchcraft could understand what it was saying. Ammi, if she wasn't with Lucy, trying to revive Susan, too far away to hear, probably would have understood it, too. But Perry had no more chance of deciphering the creature's words than he had of lifting up the mansion, rolling it around over his head, and throwing it to Cair Paravel.

"You cannot break your ties with Charn," simpered the creature.

Suddenly Edmund had an idea. He drew his dagger, holding it, hilt-first, out in front of the creature.

Perry thought he had lost his senses, but really Edmund had done a very clever thing; for, the second a flash of sunlight reflected off of Aslan's golden head depicted on the pommel, the creature blinked as if something had struck it in the eye, backed off, and started rubbing its face against the ground.

Come on, Edmund thought desperately, willing his hand not to shake and drop the dagger; _Aslan, if you're listening, I need your help_.

The creature exploded into green mist, then evaporated.

Panting madly, his chest heaving, Edmund scarcely dared to believe that actually worked.

Led by Tumnus and Eustace, a barely conscious Peter (he had fallen and lost the poker in a hallway when Susan fainted) hobbled out the door and made his way over to Susan.

She came to and opened her eyes the moment he reached her. "Peter?"

"Oh, thanks be to the Lion!" Tears filled his eyes and he bent down to kiss her forehead. "I was so worried."

Slowly and very shakily, she sat up and threw herself into her twin brother's arms. "I'm all right."

"Where are you hurt?" he asked, pulling away, even though he already had a fairly good idea of exactly where the injury was.

"Just on my side," she told him. "Probably same as you."

Lucy left them and went back to where Edmund was standing. "We did it! I knew we would."

There was a time when Edmund would have scoffed, " _Who_ did it?" pointedly and coughed self-righteously, but all the changes he had been going through, especially since coming to the mansion, and his new-found appreciation for the possibility of there really being a power greater than the witch, even with his lingering doubts, led him to say, instead, "It wasn't just us, though."

Lucy smiled and intertwined her fingers with his.

Edmund fought against the urge to drop her hand. He would never willingly give Lucy to Jadis, no matter how many warnings the witch fired off, but he was realizing that he couldn't stay here and marry her after all. It wasn't logical. More than that it wasn't safe-not for Lucy.

As long as Edmund kept trying to defy her wishes, Jadis would never stop. The Lantern Waste would very likely be over-run with monsters and cold-spells and all the nearby lakes and rivers would fill with blood until Edmund gave in and agreed to go back to Charn the way he always did after each mission. It wasn't as if he could jolly well go around flashing the dagger with Aslan's head on it left right and centre through countless attacks.

And if Lucy followed, Jadis would have what she wanted. But if he could make it clear somehow to Lucy P. Ramandu that marrying him-no, continuing their relationship _at all_ -wouldn't be in either of their best interests, and get her to end things with him... Only, Lucy was so dashed loyal! Even if he ended their betrothal as well as their friendship, he was pretty sure that if the witch made her think she saw what the other demistars thought they saw when he left, she would still go after him anyway. Lucy was too brave not to. If she thought he was in danger, she would try to rescue him.

Unless, perhaps, there was a way to make her _really_ hate his guts and be willing to let him rot. Knowing her, it would take a lot...a real, _real_ lot...but Edmund never did anything halfway; he'd pull it off it was the last thing he did.

As for the other traitors, there had to be some way of protecting them, making sure the brunt of the White Witch's anger hit him and not them. Whatever it was, he'd find it out and make sure it became reality.

A sudden commotion broke into Edmund's thoughts, and he saw that Lucy had let go of his hand and gone to where Alexander was still lying on the grassy path, bleeding heavily from the thighs and not moving.

The blood was seeping through Alexander's hose and the lower part of his doublet.

Perry was holding his twin in his arms, and Peter, who had recovered most of his strength, though his side still hurt a great deal from Susan's injury, had to pull him off of Alexander in order to get the wounded patient inside.

"Peter, wait!" Perry called after him. "There's something you should know!"

But Peter either didn't hear him or else thought he was simply in hysterics and spewing out nonsense, and he and everyone else, except for Edmund, carried Alexander inside the mansion.

Perry muttered a curse under his breath and ran inside.

Edmund stood motionless on his own for a few moments, thinking about what the witch had said in his nightmare that hadn't really been a nightmare: _you won't be the only human who will bleed_.

If anything happened to Alexander-or Susan, or anyone else-it would be his fault. He had to stop this-he just _had_ to!

Inside the mansion, when Alexander's hose had to be removed so that Peter could stitch up the wounds high up on his thighs, a little involuntary yelp of surprise escaped from the young physician.

Perry's slight-figured, gray-eyed twin 'brother' was, in fact, _female_.


	22. Of Further Changes in Plans

"I think, Lord Perry," said Peter, "you have some explaining to do."

Sitting across from them on the sofa in the entertainment room was the girl with long dark hair and gray eyes, wearing a borrowed royal blue frock of Susan's, who had, earlier that day, been Perry's twin brother.

Edmund knew her for the girl who had shot arrows at Dragon-Eustace during their staged scrimmage on the balcony, the girl who had come into his room by mistake, barked at him, covered her face, and referred to herself as Perry's wife, as well as the girl who had been sitting with Perry in his room, weeping, the day Tumnus had come up with that list of things Lucy's liked-the same woman his lordship had almost called 'Alexander'.

Now it was clear why; because she _was_ Alexander.

It was also quite clear now why she hadn't wanted him to see her that night in his room, for even dressed in women's clothes, her short wig disposed of and her long hair brushed out and falling round her shoulders, her face, when seen in decent lighting, was very obviously the face of Perry's former twin. One glimpse of her shooting arrows wasn't enough to reveal this, but if Edmund had seen her by the rush light, as she'd feared he would, chances were he would have recognized her as the slight boy who's eyes were identical to Lord Perry's almost immediately.

"I..." Perry blushed. "I think it's rather obvious now."

"Well, humour us." Peter folded his arms across his chest. "Explain why a pregnant woman is masquerading as your brother."

"Who told you I was with child?" Alexander demanded, jerking her head up to glare at the physician.

"No one," chuckled Peter, though not as if he found the situation particularly funny. "Nobody _had_ to. The second Susan loosened the- _much_ too tight-corset you were wearing under that doublet, it became pretty plain to see; you're rather far along to be hiding it."

She lowered her head.

"Frankly," Peter went on, glancing over where everyone (Susan, Edmund, Lucy, Polly, Eustace, Tumnus, Clara, Raynbi, Coriakin, even Gael and a few Dufflpuds-basically, _everyone_ ) was standing, still all looking disbelievingly at this strange young lady, trying to work out how the devil she'd come to be 'Alexander', then back at Perry, "I think you might begin by making introductions."

"No, you already know her," said Perry, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. "Friends, I present the lost Grand Duchess of Ettinsmoor."

That accounted for the gray eyes, but... "But you're dead!" cried Susan. "You've been missing for ages. You can't be..."

Peter blinked at her and took a step closer to the sofa. "Marianna?"

She shook her head. "My _name_ is Alexander." She bit her lip, then released it. "Marianna is dead, she doesn't exist anymore; I don't even know who that is."

"Excuse me," said Coriakin, coming over and standing by his son's side. "I don't mean to interrupt, but this is very rummy. I know for a certainty that Perry _does_ have a twin brother named Alexander, so if this young woman, whatever she chooses to be called, is only an imposter, and she's the only 'Alexander' we've all met..."

"Where is my biological twin?" Perry finished for him, arching a brow.

"Well, yes, naturally. Where is the lad?"

"He died," he admitted. "Shortly before the duchess 'disappeared'. I covered up his death deliberately, so that the duchess could take his name and identity." He sighed, remembering so clearly, as if it had only happened no more than a day or a few hours prior to this long over-due confession. "I trained her in combat; she was already a brilliant archer, of course. Regardless, I was able to teach her to fight a little more like a boy would; we ran drills for hours, weeks on end, so that she could keep up with me, even if we were thrown into a battle together. And that came in handy when we joined the Archenland army."

Alexander piped up. "We didn't mean for this to happen." She gestured down at her rounded stomach. "I've always loved Perry, but I did mean to be a brother to him, if he would take me away from my home in Ettinsmoor for good. I meant to replace his twin, since he had never really known him anyway. I never intended to be his wife, not at first. I only wanted to go away with him, I didn't care who-or what-I had to be."

"But why did you want to run away?" asked Peter, his tone more gentle now.

Tears filled her eyes. "I...I don't know..."

"Her parents hit her, Peter," Perry finally blurted out, unable to hold it in.

Suddenly, it no longer felt like days or hours to Lord Perry; it felt like centuries of worrying about Alexander's being abused-feeling helpless, then not so helpless when a plan began to grow in his mind. True, it was a plan most people would have thought was madness, but he believed in it with all he had in him-because there seemed no other way to rescue his childhood friend from her secretly miserable life. And whenever he'd remembered the year the grand duchess had her hair cut short and they'd looked identical from the back, so convincing that others honestly had been fooled, he truly dared to hope.

It was hard, though, never saying anything, and giving it all away, when the duchess's parents were so 'worried' about her, putting out notices for anyone who had seen their precious daughter to bring her home.

Alexander looked aghast; she still wasn't ready to deal with it. Their drills had prepared her for a lot of things, but facing what she was running away from was not one of them. "Perry, you promised never to tell anyone!"

" _What_?" Coriakin looked the most stunned out of everybody; the duke who was the father of 'Alexander', was a good friend of his. "Arthur wouldn't deliberately hurt his own child."

"He always seemed like such a nice old fellow," Peter couldn't help adding, shaking his head. Perry was _his_ friend, and he would believe his word over the duke's any day, but it was still extremely jarring.

"See, that's just what _I_ thought, too," snapped Perry, clenching his fists; "until the day I walked into a room when he didn't see or hear me come in and saw him backhand her so hard she fell out of the chair she was sitting in."

"Oh, Aslan!" sobbed Alexander, covering her face with her hands.

Perry sat down beside his wife and put his arm around her. "You're safe now, it's all right."

"Coriakin will tell Father," she wept into her husband's chest. "We'll be separated for ever. And everything will have been for naught; it'll all go back to the way it was..." She didn't add that she thought it quite certain that her parents would call her a whore when they saw the condition she was in, making it even _worse_ than the way it was previously, but she thought it, and trembled.

"I'm sure _Coriakin_ ," said Coriakin Ramandu, referring to himself cheekily in the third person, a little insulted by the duchess's assumption, "would be more reasonable than that. I don't disbelieve your story, my dear Marianna-I beg your pardon, _Alexander_." He acknowledged the beginnings of a sour pout forming on her face at his usage of her old name. "That is going to take some getting used to."

"I must say," cut in Eustace, at exactly the wrong moment, as was his way, "I'm relieved. When I saw Perry kiss his twin brother on the lips last week, I thought the Dufflepuds had been putting the wrong kind of mushrooms in my soup."

Perry looked over at Eustace, reddening. "You _saw_ that?"

"You might have _said_ something," Susan said practically. "This whole issue might have been resolved that much sooner."

"Although I believe you," Coriakin continued, as if there had been no interruption, "I am surprised at Arthur. I cannot imagine what would possess him, or his wife, to make their own poor girl-child so unhappy she would run away from home in the guise of a dead boy. Arthur always appeared to love his children so."

"Perhaps," Perry murmured downwards to the carpet, his arm still around Alexander, "she isn't his."

Alexander let out a little gasp of anxious protest, not wanting to go there, and Perry squeezed her shoulders reassuringly.

"She has gray eyes," Perry went on pointedly.

"Plenty of people have gray eyes," said Peter.

"That look almost exactly like mine?"

"What are you saying, young Lord Perry?" Coriakin asked flat-out, not understanding what he was getting at.

"I think Arthur's wife was with one of my distant cousins," Perry told them, feeling rather uncomfortable voicing the suspicions he had long kept as 'what if' whispers just between him and his wife, but forcing himself to press on. "A fourth cousin, a few times removed. I didn't know the blighter too well, but I remember he had the family eyes- _gray_ ones. And the time-line makes sense; he was in Ettinsmoor when she would have been conceived, and he was staying in the duke's house. Perhaps Arthur figured it out; he may be a man I wish I could punch in the head, but he isn't a complete moron."

"You shouldn't speak of such things in front of Gael," Susan reprimanded. She would have added, "or Lucy," but Lucy was getting older, and she was betrothed, so such a topic, while distasteful, wouldn't be as shocking and confusing to her as to a younger girl.

Gael pouted; she didn't understand too much of was going on, or why Alexander was suddenly a lady with a large stomach instead of a short boy with good aim, but she didn't want to be removed from the room, and it seemed as if Susan was implying she should be.

"You're married to your _cousin_?" Eustace wrinkled his nose. "That is so creepy."

"Oh, shut up," said Perry, sneering over at him. "Yes, I think she may have been sired by one of my _distant_ cousins. And what business is it of yours, anyway? I'll be married to whoever I fancy, thank you very much. I did not do all this for the sake of pleasing _you_." Maybe he didn't need to tell Eustace off quite so thoroughly, but there was something about the look of disgust in the boy's eyes that had just rubbed him the wrong way.

"Is she a bastard, then?" Gael asked, crinkling her forehead, trying very hard to make herself understand. If she could seem a mite more grown-up, perhaps she would not be sent off and could stay and hear what was to be done with Alexander.

"Who taught you that word?" Peter demanded, looking-for no apparent reason-at Edmund.

Susan, Coriakin, and Tumnus turned and looked at him, too.

"What are you all looking at _me_ for?" Edmund grumped.

Lucy fought back a giggle; it was still a very serious moment, after all. Only, it was very hard for her to keep much of a straight face when Edmund had an expression like that on his; and it _was_ a _little_ funny to hear a small voice like Gael's say such as dark a word as 'bastard'.

"Yes, Gael," replied Alexander softly, "I suppose I was, most likely." She said 'was' and not 'am' because she really did feel like a completely separate person from the Grand Duchess Marianna.

Marianna had been wild and playful around others when they had visitors, and, naturally, playing with Peter, Susan, and Perry-especially Perry-was the joyful highlight of her young life, whilst being a timid introverted little thing when the house was completely void of guests, or when her parents caught her alone; that pathetic, cowering little girl hadn't known the first thing about fighting, aside from her sharp eye and fair aim at darts and children's show archery. Alexander had been as different from her as day was from night; thanks to Perry's coaching, he could kill anything with one fatal shot, he was a traveler, and a dark brooding, occasionally jealous, little man with no similarity to the playful, girly little duchess who had gone missing and was declared legally dead.

Alexander had no heart for practical jokes; the child Marianna had lived and breathed them, keeping visitors in a constant up-roar of laughter. Alexander was, in spite of the fact that he was meant to be a boy-his _twin_ , no less-hopelessly in love with Perry in the most romantic meaning of the term; but Marianna had loved him only as a close chum and confidant who came and went from Ettinsmoor along with his folks in due season.

At first, being 'brothers' in private as well as in the public eye had been easy. Because they'd been such friends growing up, both Perry and Alexander had felt confident they could pull it off.

Only, there was the problem that Alexander still thought like a girl, no matter how boyish she acted, and Perry could tell she was hurt when he treated her too roughly or pushed her too far, be it emotionally or physically.

When it came to the physical stuff, Alexander never really complained. Perry just noticed her tiring out, reminded himself that she _was_ still a _her_ , one of the weaker sex, no matter how strong and clever her role in their facade was, and would invent a break in the training program off the top of his head, making it seem like it had been in the schedule the entire time.

The emotional bit was more tricky. At first Perry didn't understand why Alexander suddenly didn't like it when, after a jousting tournament at Anvard, a very pretty lady-in-waiting of the queen kissed him; why his best traveling companion wouldn't speak to him for days afterward and snubbed him during formal suppers and their private training alike.

Then Alexander had seemed to get over it, and things had gone back to the way they were before, making Perry think that perhaps it had just been that time of month.

Shortly after that, though, they had gotten so comfortable with each other that one day, while sharing a room at an inn, they even started changing clothes at the same time in the open, not caring what the other saw, as if they really were brothers.

But Perry happened to look over at his half-dressed 'twin' and felt his eyes widen and jaw drop involuntarily.

"What are you looking at?" Alexander had scoffed.

"You," was all he said.

Suddenly embarrassed, she'd crawled behind the bed, moving the headboard forward so she could have enough space, to finish changing. But it had to be admitted that she, in spite of herself, had peeked over the headboard at Perry while _he_ changed.

It was after that their private relationship had changed; behind closed doors they kissed and touched each other as if they were betrothed, whispered about how they loved each other (Perry even wrote a perfectly dreadful love poem which he burned in a fireplace after reciting it into Alexander's ear, so that no one could ever find it and hold it against him), and flirted shamelessly.

When they eventually wanted more, they had a wedding of sorts, if you could truly call it that, in a dark alleyway in Archenland, with only two scrappy ruffians for witnesses and a barely sober male dryad with a long silver beard down to his waist and curly silvery-gold hair on his head giving the speech.

And although they were happy to be wed (and, it must be confessed, looking forward to what they were planning to do in a nearby inn immediately after), Alexander especially did not find it a terribly romantic elopement. After all, some bum buying and chewing Toffee-Leaves had to be rather roughly apprehended by the authorities less than four or five feet away from them, interrupting Perry's 'I do', and the dryad got confused, lost his place, and had to begin all over again (the 'bum' who's illegal purchase collided with their wedding was actually none other than Edmund Maugrim, the time Ammi had to come and bail him out, but of course they didn't know that then).

And now they sat in Coriakin's entertainment room, finally found out.

They had had a good run, that was for certain, but whatever happened now depended, it appeared, sorely on what their friends would do now that they knew they had been duped.

"Where-ever or whoever she came from," Peter said at last, "I think a new wardrobe might be in order. I'm sure she'll be much more comfortable here during the rest of her pregnancy if she can wear dresses that are loose around the belly instead of those tunics and doublets."

Coriakin nodded; he took his eldest son's medical advice very seriously. "We'll call the tailor for some fittings as soon as possible, and in the meantime you can borrow clothes from Susan and Lucy."

"Oh, and no more corsets, Lady Alexander, you're likely to suffocate the child-or yourself-if you keep it up any longer," Peter ordered.

"You won't tell Arthur where she is," Lucy blurted, looking imploringly at her father; "will you?" Alexander was her friend, regardless of gender. "Really, you mustn't."

"Lucy!" Susan scolded. "You should never address a duke by his first name. It's bad court manners, very unseemly."

"She isn't _at_ court," Peter defended her. "And anyone who would beat a girl with the intent of harming her is unworthy of titles." He couldn't fathom ever striking his sisters, and at the moment Alexander felt very much like one of them.

"Please don't tell." Gael tugged at Coriakin's sleeve.

He kissed both Gael and Lucy on their foreheads. "Of course not, dear ones, I wouldn't dream of it."

"Well," sighed Alexander, smiling faintly at Perry, "our game's up."

"We had a pretty good run, didn't we?" he chuckled softly.

"Yes," she agreed. "But at least now I can openly clout any girls that try to flirt with you."

"You did everything _but_ that before." He took her hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it. "I don't see how much will change."

Eustace made a gagging noise, but Edmund and Tumnus shut him up.

It was nice, Edmund thought, that at least one other love story at this mansion-along with that of Aravis and Cor-should have a happy ending; his own, he knew, never would.

He was about to tear it apart at the seams till it was good and over.

And it was time, once everybody who mattered was back upstairs and he could send for Tumnus, Eustace, and Ammi to come into his room for a private word, to tell them all he had changed his mind-and their plans- _again_.

"I'm confused," Eustace was the first to blurt out, holding up his hands. "Are you marrying Lucy P. Ramandu or not?"

Leaning against the side of the fireplace mantle, his arms folded across his chest, Edmund grunted, "Not."

"But aren't you supposed to be so hopelessly in love with the wittle demistar and what-not?" Ammi remarked sarcastically, rolling her eyes and examining her nail-beds as she spoke. She was sitting crossed-legged on Edmund's bed, looking petulant.

"Ammi, I really wish you would pull your lip over your head and _swallow_ it." Edmund glowered at her. "You're not helping." Then, "And I _do_ love her, that's why I have to save her."

"Good luck with that," Ammi mumbled.

"As much as I disapprove of the brusque manner in which she _said_ it," Tumnus sighed, his facial expression vividly weary, "I'm afraid I have to agree with Ammi. What exactly can you hope to accomplish by first making a betrothal and then breaking it, Ed?"

"If she doesn't follow me..." Edmund tried to explain.

"We all die?" Ammi finished bitterly.

"We have to start all over?" Eustace guessed.

Tumnus shook his head. "Jadis will break every bone in our bodies."

"Or perhaps only _mine_ ," said Edmund, a little more quietly.

"What are you saying, Edmund?" Tumnus asked.

"I'm saying, you all have done what you were supposed to; you've assisted me in winning Lucy's affections. That was your part. Technically, you don't have to go back to Charn now. But _I_ do. Jadis will want to use me when Lucy arrives. And when the demistar doesn't come, she'll probably kill me."

"Then come after us," Ammi cut in.

"You don't know that," Edmund reminded her. "She could forget."

"Jadis never forgets," Tumnus said darkly. "We all know that much."

"But she's practical," Edmund persisted. "It might be a case of out of sight, out of mind."

"But we're never out of her sight," Eustace protested. "She can always find us."

"Pull away from her," Edmund suggested, choosing not to mention how the witch had still managed to cut him with her stone knife when he himself had tried to do just that. "From now on, no more magic from any of you. I summon the witch on my own to let her know I'm coming back, and I have complete control of the rings from here on out; Eustace, no more turning into a dragon for you." This time, maybe it would work. They could potentially be fortunate in a way he hadn't been; stranger things had happened before.

"This is a dangerous game you're setting up," Tumnus warned him, nervously.

Edmund groaned inwardly. "No worse than the one I've been playing for the witch since I was a child."

"All right," Tumnus said, closing his eyes. "Count me in, for Lucy's sake."

Eustace hesitated.

Edmund cocked his head at him pleadingly; usually, he demanded Eustace's cooperation in whatever he did, now he was almost _asking_ for it.

"Very well," Eustace gave in.

"Ammi?" Edmund glanced at her.

"Whatever," she sighed heavily. Which, essentially, was her way of saying she was on their side even if she thought they were doomed to certain failure.

"So, how are you going to make her hate you?" Eustace wanted to know.

Ammi looked a tad more interested. "Yes, do tell, lover boy."

"I haven't worked that out yet," he confessed, scratching anxiously at the back of his neck.

"Spit on Lucy whenever you talk to her from now on," Eustace suggested with a encouraging nod, as if he were suggesting the worst possible thing any man could do to the woman he loved. "It's so unhygienic. She'll loathe you for sure!"

Edmund wrinkled his nose. "Seriously? That's the best you could come up with?"

Eustace shrugged. "I think it's a good plan."

"I think you're an imbecile," Ammi commented.

"Couples break up because of bad hygiene all the time," Eustace insisted hotly, craning his neck towards the bed and pouting at her.

"Oh, really? Name one."

"Uh..."

"I have never heard of a relationship ending on account of _saliva_ ," Ammi snapped, when he couldn't think of anybody.

"We're getting off topic," said Tumnus hastily, trying to keep them focused.

"What if I just became a complete git?" Edmund thought aloud.

"No, that's not good enough." Tumnus cringed, thinking of the half-blood star girl who had been kind to them even when they were strangers who had just made asses of themselves on stage; knowing her, she would probably stick by Edmund no matter how annoying and rude he acted.

"This is rot." Ammi climbed down from the bed. "Why don't you just cheat on her and have done with it? She runs off crying, hates you for all eternity, and we get out of this mansion before Jadis can send another monster."

Edmund paused and considered this option. "Ammi, you're brilliant." He tried to smile, but all that formed on his lips was a pain-filled grimace.

"Wait..." she said, noticing that the three of them were looking very intently at her now. "No, no, no! I didn't mean with _me_!" She put her hand to her forehead and moaned. "Oh, me and my big mouth."

"Then with who?" Edmund asked pointedly. "You're the only female in on this. And we can't risk anyone else finding out we're Traitors..."

"But..." she protested.

"Come on, I'd do the same for you," Edmund pleaded. "I think I've more or less proven that."

"Please don't show me your back again," she begged.

"I won't if you agree to help me."

"So, what, we pretend to be in a secret relationship until Lucy 'accidentally' finds out and calls off the betrothal?"

"Well, a little worse than that." Edmund felt sick just _thinking_ about how it would make Lucy feel, but he didn't see what else he could do. "We set her up to walk in on us."

"Ouch," said Ammi, actually feeling sorry for Lucy in spite of herself. She knew from personal experience that just _hearing_ about your lover betraying you was painful; _seeing_ it would be undeniably worse. "That's a bit rough, Edmund."

"It has to be," he said quietly. "I don't want her to ever forgive me."

"That's a tall order," Tumnus put in.

"Do you think you could get some of that Calormene betrothal ink?" Edmund asked the faun.

"Why?"

"I want Lucy to see it on Ammi's forehead when she walks in."

"But that sounds _mean_..." Eustace said in a wavering voice.

"That's the _point_ , Useless." Still, Edmund swallowed hard and had to wipe quickly at his watering eyes.

"This sounds like it might take a few days to plan out and get right," said Tumnus, trying to think of a local place that sold ink of that sort.

Edmund nodded. "In the meantime, Ammi, if at all possible, I want you to make Lucy feel as insecure as possible."

"Does this mean I have to flirt with you in front of people?" She looked rather repelled by the idea.

"You asked me to marry you in a tavern," Edmund scoffed, "I don't think public performance intimidates you much."

"I was drunk!"

"Still..."

"But don't lay it on too thick," Tumnus cut in. "Drop a few hints, then leave it be until everything's set up."

Edmund walked over to the window and looked out it, then back over his shoulder at the other Traitors. "You know, I just realized something."

"What, Cousin?" asked Eustace.

"I'm doing exactly what Peter was afraid I would." Edmund's voice was low, almost a whisper. "I'm breaking her heart."

"But you're doing it for the right reason," Tumnus said gently. "You're trying to save her life."

"I'm going for a walk." Edmund left the window, walked to the door, and lifted the latch.

In the hallway, he spotted Lucy walking by herself, looking pensive. She smiled when she noticed him.

Under the tunic she wore, the collar of her shift wasn't folded back properly. Edmund felt his mind transported back to their picnic when she had first shown him how she could charm bees and fill a jar with fresh honeycomb, remembering how her collar had stuck up then, too, and how badly he'd wanted to fold it back for her, sitting on his hands to stop himself.

"Come here," he whispered once they were in hearing-range of each other.

"What is it?" There was something dreadful in his face that worried her.

Edmund reached out and folded her collar down neatly, running his fingers briefly along her neckline. Then he put his hand under her chin, rubbing it with his thumb, and, bending down, kissed her hairline.

There, he thought resignedly, walking away from her, that will have to be my final ration for the rest of eternity; I could die for a lot less.


	23. Setting The Stage

"Ta-da!" cried Ammi, running into the entertainment room just as Polly was finishing up a song on the harpsichord.

Edmund was somewhat relieved to see that she wasn't carrying a game hen, or any other dead animals, in her arms, but he also noticed that she was wearing a large black woolen cape and wondered what was up. She had to be about to put on a performance of some kind; the look on her face, which he knew all too well, told him so.

Sure enough, with a dramatic flourish, Ammi flung off the cape and spun around, revealing an expensive-looking new floor-length dress (almost more of a gown, really) of cream-colour brocade, trimmed with white velvet and ermine (most likely not _Talking_ ermine) fur.

Paddy, sitting on Lord Perry's lap at the moment, laughed and clapped his hands, thinking it was a game of some kind. But for lack of recognition in regards to Ammi herself, Edmund wondered for the first time if the kid even knew she was his mother.

"Very nice," said Polly politely. She thought Ammi was being rather a little show-off, but didn't especially grudge her that. After all, even Lucy got excited about new gowns, it was only to be expected in a young lady. She'd lost count of the number of times Susan had come parading into a room in the mansion to show them a fashionable new garment. And, to be honest, Polly was not uninterested in pretty clothes herself.

Lucy, seated next to Edmund, nodded in agreement. She thought it was a lovely dress, aside from the fact that it wasn't particularly to her own taste; she preferred more vivid colours.

"Edmund bought it for me," she announced.

Edmund probably shouldn't have brought a glass of spiced wine to his lips just before Ammi opened her mouth, because he was so shocked that he did a spit-take that hit an unsuspecting, hapless Lucy on the cheek. "Oh! Sorry, Lu."

Eustace, seated near Perry, put his hand to his mouth; more out of disgusted shock over the spitting than out of any real amusement.

"I _did_?" Edmund finally spluttered out after a pause of stunned silence.

Ammi shot him a look, lowering her eyebrows just slightly, urging him to stop looking so surprised and play along.

"I mean, I did," he amended in a more level tone. "Of course I did."

Lucy wiped her cheek dry with a handkerchief.

Standing up and going to Ammi's side, he asked, in a fairly low voice, "Exactly how much did I spend on such an...er... _thoughtful_ gift?" He couldn't help speaking through his teeth. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Ammi probably really _had_ taken the money from Edmund's share of their Narnian gold coins.

"You're so funny, Edmund." Ammi tittered in an uncharacteristically high-pitched fashion.

Leaning close to her ear, he hissed, "I said make her feel _insecure_ , not make her worry about your mental stability!"

"Oh, stop!" she giggled as if Edmund had just told her the world's funniest joke. "You're too much." Turning so that only he could see her face, she frowned and whispered, "Seriously, stop. I know what I'm doing."

" _Great_ ," he hissed back. "Too bad _I_ haven't the foggiest."

"Now," she said very softly in his ear, leaning close to him, "smile so it seems like I'm saying something you like."

Edmund forced a grin and a weak, very awkward, chuckle.

Taking a step back, Ammi giggled and sighed melodramatically.

Lucy crinkled her forehead. What in Aslan's name were the two of them laughing about? And why did Edmund suddenly have such a strange laugh, when it came to that? That, for lack of a better term, _noise_ he was making didn't sound at all like him.

"Now," whisper-mouthed Ammi, "say 'you look beautiful'."

Unfortunately, Polly picked that exact moment to begin another-rather loud and merry-tune on the harpsichord and Edmund couldn't hear what Ammi said. Normally, he could read lips all right, but he was feeling a little flustered and, moreover, his thoughts kept going back to Lucy, which kind of gave him a bit of a stomach ache. He couldn't stop thinking about how painfully ironic it was that he had to betray her so that he didn't actually betray her. It was just so dashed confusing!

"What?" he mouthed back to Ammi.

She frowned. "You look beautiful," she repeated, a little more loudly.

His eyes had flickered over to a bluebottle that had just died on a windowsill in the corner of the room, and he hadn't heard-or seen-what she said. "Sorry?"

"You're beautiful." She simplified it.

"What?"

Polly got a sudden throbbing cramp in her left wrist and pulled her fingers off the keys, stopping mid-song.

"You're beautiful!" Ammi shouted, flicking her hands in frustration, trying to be heard over the music that was now non-existent.

Everyone in the room (Eustace, Polly, Lucy, Perry, and Lady Alexander) turned and stared at her with crinkled foreheads and furrowed brows.

Edmund laughed nervously, this time not as forced. "Um, thanks, I guess." He patted her on the shoulder. "You're not so bad yourself, old thing."

Less than twenty minutes later, they were upstairs, and Tumnus met them in Edmund's room. "Well, how is the plan going so far?"

"Like horse manure," Edmund groused, glaring at Ammi.

"I don't see why you're so upset," Ammi said with a warning edge to her otherwise flat tone of voice. " _I'm_ the one who ended up looking stupid because _you_ couldn't stay focused."

"Well, maybe if you had told me in advance instead of just coming in there and throwing me off guard..."

"You've always done so well improvising in the past," Ammi pointed out. "I thought a natural reaction would look more genuine. And that your being uncomfortable could be easily misinterpreted as mild guilt."

Edmund rolled his eyes. "You had better be a lot more convincing when she walks in on us together."

"Same goes for you," she snorted, tossing her head back.

" _Beautiful_ ," snorted Edmund contemptuously, more to himself than to Ammi or Tumnus.

"Hey, _You_ were supposed to say it to _me_ ," Ammi growled defensively, "not the other way around! It's hardly _my_ problem that you can't take a hint."

"What luck with the betrothal ink?" Edmund turned to Tumnus, ignoring Ammi for the time being.

"I can have a small amount here in about two days or less," he announced proudly. "Unfortunately, I think Clara now has it in her head that I'm going to propose to her because she over-heard me talking to the merchant about that blasted ink."

"Poor Clara," said Edmund.

"I'm really going to miss her," Tumnus admitted bashfully.

"All this love and betrothal nonsense is making me feel ill," Ammi grumped, plopping down into a rocking chair.

"Ammi..." Edmund began to say something, then stopped. "Never mind."

"Thank you, Edmund."

"For what?"

"For not bringing up someone both you and I agreed we never wanted to hear mentioned again in a pathetic attempt to make me feel better, and botching it up, like you do with everything, and making me want to smack you instead." She blinked and wouldn't look at them for the next few minutes, unwilling to let them see the moisture in her eyes. "I appreciate that."

"You're welcome," said Edmund gently, nodding and allowing Ammi her moment of silence.

The following day, luncheon was not served as a formal meal with the entire Ramandu family and their guests; this had only happened a handful of times since Edmund had first come to stay at the mansion. On such rare occasions the rule seemed to be that the guests and Ramandu children alike were permitted to raid the kitchens and pantries on a first come, first served basis.

Edmund and Ammi were definitely not the first people to go leftover-hunting for their noon meal; in fact, they were probably amongst the very last.

Ammi had over-slept and only woken up round eleven of the clock, then spent an hour in her room sort of just loitering about doing nothing.

Edmund had been by the fire in his own room, lost in thought, trying to plan out exactly how he would set everything up when Tumnus finally came through with that betrothal ink.

The one part he couldn't imagine too freely because it cut him to the core every time he tried, was Lucy's reaction. In theory, she was hurt and never forgave him, as the plan called for. In that way it was to be a great success; a great victory, even! A demistar had never been freed from the grasp of any one of the White Witch's servants like this before. But there was so much more to it; her face when she was betrayed...he wasn't at all certain he could stand to look directly at it when the time came.

Eventually his stomach growled, informing him that he was indeed rather hungry, and he got up, meeting Ammi on the way down.

She grunted at him in greeting.

He nodded; and they walked silently the rest of the way.

The pantry they came to was empty of most of the especially good leftovers-the sweets, the fancy breads, the fine meats, and the exotic cheeses were all gone-but there were plenty of perfectly acceptable staples. Some fine brown bread studded with seeds and nuts; some dried rainbow trout from Cair Paravel; some of the game hen Ammi had most recently poached on their land; milk and butter; there was enough for a good tuck-in, at any rate.

Ammi lifted the tied cloth off the top of a fair-sized porcelain milk-jug.

"Careful," Edmund teased, his mouth full of brown bread.

"Why?" Ammi twisted her neck to look at him. "What's up?"

"Nothing." He grinned. "I was just thinking it might curdle at the sight of your face."

"Git," Ammi scoffed.

Edmund's facial expression was still pretty self-satisfied. "Doesn't mean it's not true." He was, of course, only teasing in the way a brother might tease his most uppity sister, or as boy too young to have another motive aside from mere playfulness might pick on a childhood sweetheart. Ammi was actually quite pretty, and unfortunately she had always seemed to know it far too well. Her overt vanity prodded him to make little comments like that from time to time.

Ammi lifted the uncovered milk-jug and dumped almost half its contents over Edmund's head. "Sweet enough, Edmund Maugrim?"

Wiping dribbles of very thick, creamy milk off of the bridge of his nose and tip of his chin with the back of his hand, he gave her a stunned, gaping smirk. "You really shouldn't have done that."

"I don't see it that way," she said smartly.

Taking a handful of flour out of a crystal jar, he whipped the powdery white stuff in her face. "Is your sight improved now, Princess?"

She coughed and snorted, trying to get rid of the white flour that had gone up her nose. "You're a dead man."

He stuck his tongue out at her.

She poured herself a glass of warm grape wine, then said, "You know what? I'm not thirsty. Besides, it's too early in the day to start drinking." With that, she threw the contents of the glass at Edmund, staining his brown tunic with a large, smelly purple-red stain.

"That's the best you could do?"

"No." She went around him, picked up the flour jar, and dumped the rest of it over his head. Since it stuck to the milk, he now looked like an albino with ashy gray hair. " _That_ might be, though."

After that, food was whipped back and fourth in a semi-violent manner for a good ten minutes. Edmund realized that this was the very first time in his life he had ever been in a position to waste good food, and was caught between an unexpected feeling of freedom and a more natural feeling of guilt. In Charn, no matter how badly Ammi annoyed him, he would never dream of throwing food around like this; especially considering how many nights they had gone hungry because of circumstances beyond their control. Ammi seemed to have no such reservations; if she did, she quickly dismissed them.

The fight came to a head when Edmund found an insulated ice-bucket and pulled out an ice chunk, dropping it down the back of Ammi's collar.

It was colder than she was expecting and she let out an involuntary scream. At the same time, her arm shot out and accidentally on purpose hit Edmund in the abdomen.

He let out a grunt and tried to give her a shove, unfortunately slipping in a puddle of milk and landing on the pantry floor.

Ammi, still shivering from the ice and shrieking a little, pointed at him and laughed wildly, only to take a half-step forward and slip on the same puddle herself, landing flat on her face and stomach next to him. "I really ought to have seen that coming." She rolled over, grunting.

By the time Peter, who had already had his luncheon, happened to pass by the outside of the pantry, all he heard was screaming and grunting.

A girl's voice shouted, "Edmund, for pity's sake, get off me!"

At first he thought it was Lucy and, concerned, swung open the short high-up, wood-plated doors, barging in.

Of course, as it turned out, it wasn't Lucy at all; it was Ammi and Edmund covered in flour and milk and Aslan knew what else, reeking of wine, having a wrestling match like that of two low-class school-children during their mid-day break on the pantry floor.

"Hang it all," Peter said in a loud but empty voice, uncertain of how to react; "what the devil is going on in here?"

Edmund stopped pinning Ammi to the floor and let her sit up. "Nothing," he said, honestly hoping that Peter would believe the truth, as this definitely was not part of their plan, just an ordinary scuffle that had become a bit too loud.

It could be, Peter knew, perfectly innocent, and part of him trusted Edmund-or at least desperately _wanted_ to-but just to be safe, he said, "I hope you know how lucky you are to be betrothed to my sister, Mr. Maugrim."

"Yeah, there was a gigantic hole in his life before he met her," said Ammi sardonically, wiping flour off of her brow with the side of her hand.

"Actually," said Edmund, turning his head to frown at her, "the hole's still there. It's right in the middle of your face. Feel like shutting it?"

"Funny," she growled.

"I don't know what's going on here," Peter said, sighing heavily, "but you're both welcome to join myself and Alexander for archery in the garden when you're done cleaning up the pantry."

"Will Lucy be there?" Edmund wanted to know.

"Yes," said Peter shortly, turning on his heels and leaving the pantry.

"You don't do archery," Ammi reminded him. "You can just barely hold a bow and arrow straight."

"I like to watch," Edmund said defensively.

Ammi cocked her head at him.

"When Lucy's practicing," he caved, reddening slightly.

"Big hole in the middle of my face, eh?" She folded her sticky, powder-covered arms across her chest.

"Oh, shut up."

"Yes, I believe that's what you wanted me to do when you said it."

"Here." He thrust a broom at her. "Help me clean this mess up."

"Fine." She took the broomstick and started sweeping up the flour while Edmund worked on wiping up the milk.

When they emerged from the pantry, sweaty and still covered in food staples and wine themselves though the room itself was now as spotless as they could get it, they ran into Lucy.

She was late getting to archery practice because she'd been out exercising Snowflake. She was dressed in boyish ridding clothes tailored to fit her and a scarlet women's ridding habit; sweat both cold and warm was on her forehead and her hair looked damp with perspiration as well.

She put her hand to her mouth when she caught sight of Edmund covered in milk and flour; Ammi, she didn't even notice standing there at first.

"What happened, Ed?" she laughed.

"Nothing." He shrugged his shoulders.

Ammi quietly crept up the nearest staircase.

"You're all white," Lucy giggled.

"Not _all_ white." He gestured down at the purple-red wine stain.

That explained the smell she had been trying to place since she walked up to him. "Were you drinking?"

"I could have been," Edmund replied vaguely, shifting from one foot to the other.

There was a coldness, a suddenly standoffish way, about him that was making Lucy feel very uncomfortable. He wasn't talking to her like she was his betrothed; he was talking to her as if she were no more than a causal acquaintance. In fact, much as she tried to dismiss this notion, she thought he even sounded a little irritated with her, though she didn't recall saying anything that would make him so.

It was then that she noticed Ammi had been there, simply because she was now gone, leaving herself and Edmund alone.

A little shyly, Lucy leaned forward to kiss him, but he pulled away. "Not now, Lucy, I'm all messy."

She looked down at her sweaty clothes; frankly, she didn't think she was that much better at the moment.

"See you round." Edmund turned and went for the staircase himself, meeting Ammi at the top of it.

"That was cold, Ed." She had been listening to the whole thing.

"No," he said, pushing away his guilt for the time being (he could let it wash over him later, when he went to bed), " _that_ is how you make a person feel insecure."

"Is it weird that I find you more attractive when you're being a cold-hearted ass?" Ammi pondered aloud.

"Oh, please," snorted Edmund, rolling his eyes. " _Everything_ you think is weird. Now move so I can get by."

Ammi put her hand to her heart jestingly. "I think I'm in love."

"Hysterical," he said over his shoulder.

"I thought so," she chuckled.

That night, Edmund couldn't sleep. As he'd fully expected, his guilt caught up with him. For all it did eating him up inside, he almost felt as if he really _were_ cheating on Lucy instead of only pretending. After all, in Lucy's eyes, if all went according to plan, he _would_ be.

Part of him wanted to fake a nightmare and start moaning and shouting out in hopes that she would come in to see him; but he didn't because he knew that, if she really _did_ come, treating her nonchalantly wouldn't be possible. The temptation to keep her with him and confide in her, even just to have her stay in the room so that he could hear her breathing as he went to sleep and know he wasn't alone, would be too great under such a circumstance. And, for that at least, he was glad he couldn't fall asleep, couldn't actually have a bad dream and cry out unwittingly.

A scream followed by a great deal of crying did come that night, but it wasn't from Edmund. In fact, startled by it, Edmund climbed out of bed, tied a dressing-gown round himself and went out to see what the hubbub was.

When he finally reached the source, he saw Peter coming out of the room Alexander and her husband Perry now shared. His face was very gloomy and crestfallen; his eyes were blood-shot.

"Pete?" said Edmund, looking concerned.

Peter closed his eyes and shook his head.

The door to the room was still open and, drawing nearer, Edmund saw Alexander in a sleeping shift sitting in a cushioned rocking-chair by the fire. Perry was standing at the side of it, rubbing one of her shoulders consolingly.

"I lost it," sobbed Alexander when she heard another person (she didn't know it was Edmund, nor did she really care _who_ it was) cross the threshold into the room. Her voice was hoarse and shock-ridden.

Perry turned and looked at Edmund. "You can go back to your room, there's nothing to be done. It was over before Peter could even come in."

It wasn't the time to mention it, but amongst his genuine sadness for Alexander and Perry's loss (truly, Edmund felt as if he would have cut his own hand off if it could have brought their poor dead child back), an idea grew in his mind. Perry and Alexander had been expecting to be parents, and maybe they still could be.

There was no way he could take Paddy back with him when he went to Charn; the family in Galma wouldn't want him; Ammi was far better at caring for and training peers than children, and she couldn't look at her baby most of the time, anyway; Lucy was no longer going to be the boy's stepmother; so why not, when the time was more opportune, offer Perry and Alexander the chance to adopt him?

They would be good to Paddy. If Perry could teach Alexander enough to pass for a boy in the army, he would surely be able to raise the boy so that he grew up to be a survivor; and Edmund knew he would feel better leaving his son with them than he had leaving him with a houseful of strangers like he'd had to the last time he gave him up.

The following day was a dark, gray one, the people who strolled about the mansion looking sad and not really speaking much even in whispers.

The air in the entire building was so still and silent that everywhere you walked, you could hear clocks ticking and the muffled pounding footsteps of the Dufflepuds in the servants' quarters.

When Tumnus pulled Edmund aside to tell him he had the betrothal ink, he actually jumped from the sudden break in the over-powering quiet that filled everything.

"Good," he said softly, nodding at the faun. "Tomorrow night, then. Tomorrow night we finish this last betrayal and I leave the mansion for ever."


	24. Betrayals & Snow

The rush lights all burned low, a decanter of raspberry wine the colour of a blood-red rose was on the little table pushed near the bed, and Ammi was stoking the embers in the grate of the fireplace until they burned orange and warm flames started crackling on top of them.

Edmund felt cold, shivering in the thinnest long night-shirt he owned, and sat down on the edge of the bed with a gold-rimmed wineglass in his trembling right hand. The small box of Calormene betrothal ink was in the middle of his lap.

"Ready?" Ammi asked, standing up and putting the poker away.

"Ready as I'm ever going to be." Edmund shrugged his shoulders.

Everything was set. The empty glass honey jar with its usual note was left, not outside the door as it was supposed to be, but haphazardly wedged in the door-frame itself. Lucy would have to open the door at least a crack to retrieve it this evening; and when she did, she would see and hear them. So, yes, the circumstances for this betrayal were ready, but Edmund himself never would be; he knew that if he waited for that, he would be an old, old man or, more likely, _dead_ by the time he didn't feel a sense of dread about the whole matter.

"That poor girl," sighed Ammi, thinking about the demistar. "She really does love you, you know."

"I know." Edmund closed his eyes, breathed in, and opened them again, exhaling. "Sit down."

She sat on the edge of the bed beside him. Even though she had been in her night-clothes in front of Edmund often enough, both in Charn and on their missions, without a second thought, this was the first time it felt awkward.

Wincing, Edmund opened the box and pressed his thumb down into the red ink. But as he lifted it to Ammi's forehead, the image of Lucy's bewildered expression when he put it on _her_ forehead came to him. So clearly he could see her bringing her fingers up to feel it in joyful disbelief.

He lowered his hand and swallowed hard. "I can't do this." He wiped his thumb off on the side of his night-shirt. "You're going to have to put it on yourself, Ammi."

She took the box from him, pressed her own thumb into it, and carefully made a straight line from the place between her eyebrows all the way up to her hairline.

"There," he said softly.

"For mercy's sake, Edmund!" Ammi rolled her eyes.

"What?" He furrowed his brow.

"Open the front of your shirt a little." She reached forward and pulled on the white string that held it closed in the front, pulling it open. "There! That's going to be more convincing. Now, take a sip of the wine." She noticed he hadn't been drinking it.

"Why? It's just for show."

"If you have to say something to her after she sees us and your breath doesn't smell like wine, it's going to be pretty apparent that this was a set-up."

"Or maybe it will look like I was going to drink but didn't yet," Edmund argued.

Ammi let out a snort. "That's pathetic."

"Fine." He took a sip and handed the glass to her. "Happy?"

"Practically about to start a conga line," she snipped, taking a sip herself then putting the glass down by the decanter.

"Sit closer to me," he ordered.

She scooted a little closer.

"You remember what to say?"

" _No_ , I forgot in spite of the fact that you made me go over it ten times," Ammi said sarcastically. "Yes, of course I remember!"

"Keep your voice down," Edmund barked, his pupils sliding anxiously towards the door.

They sat there staring over each others' shoulders for a couple of minutes before soft foot-steps were heard outside of the room. Then Ammi took a deep breath, tilted her head, and pressed her lips against Edmund's.

It's a funny thing, Edmund couldn't help thinking, that everyone is under the impression Ammi and I have been together and yet this is the first time our lips have even touched.

The extremely rare times Edmund had ever kissed Ammi had been on the cheek. And the one he remembered best was when he was seven and Tumnus made him do it to apologize for something; he never could recall just what he had been apologizing for that day, only that he had made a real fuss about it and that Ammi hadn't liked it any better, and had wiped her cheek furiously with the back of her hand immediately after.

And, frankly, this whole staged kiss now, all this time later, didn't really feel any more endearing or meaningful than that brief peck had. It was just something put-on for someone else's benefit. When he was seven, it was to stop Tumnus from scolding him; now it was to keep Lucy safe. He truly couldn't imagine kissing his childhood companion without a reason.

He knew that Lucy must be in the room now; two things told him that. One, there had been the scrape of the glass jar being moved from the door-frame followed by the squeaking of the hinges. Two, Ammi's kiss became more forceful (before that she was just sort of waiting with her lips pressed absently against his) and she put the palm of her hand on the open place on the front of his night-shirt.

Willing himself to be strong, pretending not to have heard Lucy come in, Edmund put an arm around Ammi's waist and kissed her in return.

Ammi, pretending same as he was, pulled away and whispered, "Can I ask you something?"

"Whatever is it?"

"Are you actually in love with Lucy Ramandu?" She made a face, wrinkling her nose, as if the thought made her feel unwell.

He made himself crack a nasty little smirk. "Course not, what do you take me for?"

Ammi breathed a sigh of 'relief'. "Just, you know, after the betrothal was announced..."

Edmund let out the roughest little condescending laugh he could manage. "She's just a kid," he scoffed, as if there was a huge age difference between himself and Lucy. "Don't let's talk about her tonight."

'Giving in', Ammi pulled herself into his arms and wrapped her own around his neck.

There came the sound of glass shattering, and Ammi and Edmund let go of one another, finally 'noticing' Lucy standing there.

The shock of what she had just seen and heard had caused her to lose her grip on the empty glass jar; it was now on the floor of the room in a hundred tiny shards.

"Lucy!" said Edmund, as if embarrassed.

Ammi pushed back her hair 'awkwardly', but really she was only making sure Lucy definitely saw the ink on her forehead.

The expression on Lucy's face was worse than anything Edmund had imagined in preparing for this. She wasn't crying yet, just staring at him incredulously with wide, water-filled eyes, her face gone as white as a clean sheet of parchment.

"I-" he began, wishing she would either say something or leave the room, not sure how much longer he could take her looking at him like that.

"I thought you loved me," was all she said, when her voice finally returned to her. With that, she gave him one last look and ran out of the room.

The second she was gone, Edmund put his hand to his forehead, blocking his eyes to hide his own tears; he didn't like to cry in front of Ammi, even though he thought perhaps-just this once-she wouldn't hold it against him if she noticed.

"Get dressed," said Ammi, going to the other side of the room, picking up his jerkin and tossing it to him. "It's done. We've got to go now."

"All right." He nodded and stood up. "Go make sure Tumnus and Eustace are ready to leave."

Ammi obeyed and left the room.

Once Edmund was properly dressed, he threw on a pair of boots and grabbed the knapsack he'd packed that morning. Everything he owned that was worth taking away with him was in there, ready to go. Except, that is, for two small objects he had decided to leave behind for Lucy.

The plan didn't call for him to go and see her now. In fact, he was planning on just leaving the two things behind in his room for her to find later, and he wasn't at all certain he could still go through with this if he stopped in her room to see her one last time; but, in spite of that, he knew he couldn't leave if he didn't do so anyway, regardless of what it might cost him.

He would not ask her forgiveness, nor did he want it. If he did, he wouldn't have staged that whole betrayal for the sake of losing her trust for ever. But he did want to say goodbye to her, even if she wouldn't look at him (he even thought he'd prefer it if she didn't).

It wasn't only because he loved her that he wanted this, though it was mostly that. It was also due to the fact that never, not so much as once, in all the time he'd worked for the witch, had he _ever_ said goodbye to a half-blood star girl he betrayed. He always left without a word. And, as this would be his last time, and all the other rules had gone out the window, it seemed only fitting.

In her room, Lucy was crouched by the fireplace with bent knees, one hand up on the mantlepiece, staring into the flames; tears were running down her face, occasionally falling into the fire itself and causing a faint sizzle or crackling sound.

Her door was unlocked, and the moment it creaked open and the sound of boots on the floor reached her ears, Lucy knew it was Edmund without even having to look up.

Indeed, she didn't look at him at all. She kept staring into the fire.

"Lu," he said.

"Why?" she sniffled brokenly.

"I don't have an explanation," he lied.

A strangled sob came out of Lucy's throat, followed by a heart-wrenching whimper that made Edmund want to throw his arms around her, hold her close, and comfort her till she stopped crying.

He forced himself to remember why he was doing this and pressed his arms tightly down by his sides to keep them in place.

"Maybe it's just..." He was completely winging this. He knew he should shut up and not make it worse, but the lie kept coming. "I've known Ammi since I was a child."

"How is it my fault we didn't meet in our childhood?" cried Lucy, still weeping into the fire.

More than anything, Edmund longed to tell her they really _had_ , that she'd saved his life, she just didn't know it. He clenched his jaw stubbornly. No, he would not say it and ruin everything. He would _not_! This pain he was putting her through would be for a reason, even if she never knew it. It would _not_ be a pointless hurt, so help him Aslan!

"If you didn't..." Lucy gasped out falteringly. "If you don't love me, you should never have pretended."

"I-I never really said I did," Edmund blurted, hating himself. It was true that he had never verbally said 'I love you' to her, but he'd done everything just short of it, including agreeing to marry her.

"Get out." Lucy's face flushed with hurt and anger. "Just get out."

"I am," he swore. "That's actually why I came." He swallowed hard. "I...I'm leaving the mansion, Lucy, for good."

Lucy didn't respond; she just shook her head, still unable to look at him. Strangely enough, despite the fact that he had broken her heart, part of her still felt the desire to plead with him to stay, to be very sorry that he was going. But there was no need for that. There was nothing she could say or do. Edmund loved Ammi, Paddy's mother, and it turned out he had never loved _her_ at all.

Paddy! "What about Paddy?" She assumed Ammi would step up and act like a mother, now that she and the father of her child were in a relationship again. Only, Lucy felt she had to know for sure what was going to become of the little boy who's father she loved and had almost married.

"He's staying," Edmund told her. "At least, as long as Perry and Alexander do, anyway. I spoke to them this afternoon; they're going to adopt him as their own son."

"Ammi doesn't want him?"

"No."

"I see." Lucy sniffled again and swallowed a sob.

"Tumnus and Eustace are leaving, too, though."

She didn't reply.

Edmund walked over to where her bed was and placed the two objects he'd brought into the room with him on top of the silk-and-fur patchwork comforter. "Goodbye, Lucy."

She wouldn't say goodbye back-she couldn't, her throat closed and her knees felt like they were giving way. She tightened her grip on the mantle, knowing her knuckles must already be as white as snow.

He took in her profile one last time; her small form in white night-clothes, her fair brown hair curling round her shoulder-blades; what he could see of her face hollow and despairing.

Oh, how he utterly despised himself for doing this to her! He was almost glad that the witch would likely kill him for this.

As soon as Edmund was gone, Lucy waded over to the bed to see what it was he had been putting over there.

There was the dagger with Aslan's golden head gleaming in a neat new-looking sheath and an old, beat-up leather book of the kind one writes in that Lucy had never seen before. It was not a particularly thick book, not heavy or dense, but not quite sparse enough to be called _thin_ , either. Many of the pages at the beginning, all the way into the middle, had writing on them. Names, lots of them. All girls' names.

Edmund had had much inward debate about whether or not he should leave this book-this ghastly little volume that chronicled the names of each and every star girl he had ever betrayed, scrawled out in his own hand-but in the end he thought only that he wouldn't be needing it any longer and that it was the only thing even remotely resembling a full confession he could ever give her. He didn't expect-or want-her to understand, for that would ruin everything, but he had to leave the answer in her hands anyway, as a kind of penance.

"Who are all these people?" said Lucy very quietly to herself. Each name, she noticed, had a line running through it. "Why have they been crossed out?" The last name in the book, written in Edmund's handwriting just as all the others were, was her own: _Lucy P. Ramandu_. But hers was circled, not crossed out.

Shaking her head, she shut the book and put it down, picking up the dagger. She truly had loved to see him with it! Now she never would again. No one would, he'd left it with her; possibly even for that very reason.

The book she couldn't figure out. It couldn't be a list of his past romances, because then Ammi's name would be in there, too, and it was not. Some of the names sounded familiar, which gave her a nasty turn in the pit of her stomach, but she couldn't place any of them.

"I've got a bad feeling," she thought aloud.

Meanwhile, Edmund rushed down the staircase towards the entryway that led to the front doors, his knapsack over his shoulder. He had to get out of there. Tumnus, Ammi, and Eustace had left a note to inform him they had left by the servants' quarters (Tumnus had wanted to bid a quick farewell to Clara) and were outside.

"Ed?" Peter came out of an antechamber only a few feet away from the bottom of the staircase.

 _Oh bother._ Edmund grimaced, stopping on the last step, swaying a little and having to grab hold of the carving on the glossy wooden banister to keep from losing his balance.

"Where are you going?" Peter didn't know what he just had done to Lucy, but he knew what it looked like when someone with no intent of returning was leaving in a hurry. And while he couldn't read Lucy's mind or sense her thoughts the way he could Susan's, there was a sort of faint ache that often struck him when Lucy was upset, and he had a feeling she was upset now. Had she and Edmund had a row? If so, what could they possibly have quarreled about?

"Away," said Edmund monosyllabically, stepping down and moving around Peter as best he could.

"You can't go away," Peter laughed anxiously. "You're marrying my sister. Where is this coming from?"

Susan came out from another antechamber on the opposite side. "What's all the fuss about?"

"Edmund's leaving," he reported in disbelief.

"Rubbish. Absolute nonsense," Susan said practically. "How can he leave? There's a near to a full foot of snow outside; it's been falling for hours. And such wind! No sensible person would travel in such weather. And at this hour, too! It's getting dark."

Edmund resumed walking to the doors.

"Peter!" exclaimed Susan, gesturing over at Edmund. "He's gone mad. Stop him. Take his sack away and feel his forehead. He's delirious. I'm certain he's got a fever. Just look at his face, anyone can tell!"

"Edmund Maugrim." Peter ran ahead and stepped in front of Edmund when he was only two feet from the coat-hooks. "You are a real piece of work. I tell you to stay away from Lucy, and you don't. Then when I give you both my blessing and a marriage is imminent, you want to leave."

"Go talk to Lucy," Edmund suggested. "I think you won't mind my being gone when she tells you what happened." He was thankful the place was big enough that Peter wouldn't be able to get to Lucy and back in a hurry, giving him a head-start; he didn't doubt Peter's ability to rearrange his face once he learned about how his poor little sister had been betrayed.

Peter reached out and gripped his shoulder. "Whatever it is, you're part of the family now. You can't just disappear whenever little problems come up. It's like when you got over that addiction of yours; it isn't easy, but you can pull through. You're family, one of us."

He shrugged off Peter's hand. "I'm sorry, but I'm not. I don't belong here."

Peter watched as Edmund swung one of the doors open, a burst of cold air that smelled strongly of fresh, clean snow blowing in.

A few snowflakes swirled where the sloping, extended roof of the mansion ended.

Edmund walked out, snow falling and gathering as white specks in his dark hair.

Susan stood in the doorway, rubbing at her crossed arms; but Peter went after him, running right out, never-minding the weather.

"Edmund, listen to me!" he called, almost shouting to be heard over the wind. "I don't know what you're running from, and I don't know what you're afraid of; I don't even know where you came from... But I do know this: you belong here as much as I do!"

They stood there staring at each other for nearly a full minute. They could see their breaths. Snow landed on their shoulders; neither of them bothered to brush the gathering frozen white dust off.

Finally, Edmund, knowing he had no other choice, turned on his heels and started marching away without saying anything. Peter would never know how much his last words, spoken on the very threshold of the mansion, meant to him.

Back up in her room, Lucy looked out the window. The snow was coming down so hard she could just barely see through it, and the glass on her window was fogging up.

She wiped it with her hand and peered out.

What she saw shocked her almost as much as walking in on her betrothed in the arms of another woman.

There was a magnificent silver sledge fashioned from the fanciest, lightest silver Lucy had ever laid eyes on, pulled by a team of snowy reindeer about the size of Shetland ponies; they were so white that the snow looked dark next to them, and their bridles and reins were of scarlet leather, from which dangled gold jingle-bells. And sitting in the sledge was a woman whom many others, in Lucy's place, would have said was the most beautiful female being they'd ever seen; but Lucy herself thought her sister Susan was prettier.

This lady, even sitting down, was far too tall for her looks, making one think more of a small giant than a big person. Besides, she couldn't be called _big_ ; she was really very slender. Her skin was white like sugar and her mouth was so very red that it almost looked like it was covered in blood. She was covered up to her throat in white fur, and her pale hair hung in dreadlocks.

She did not, even at a distance, seem like a pleasant person; and Lucy felt a little afraid of her, glad that the window-and the mansion itself-separated them, silently praying that this woman was not a visitor who planned on coming inside. There was something horrid and deadly in this strange lady's face.

A figure with dark hair, much shorter than the lady, was walking toward the sledge.

At first Lucy thought it must be a servant for the lady; only, then she realized that the lady seemed to be on her own, driving herself, holding the reins of red leather in her ghost-coloured hands.

Then, she saw that the figure was familiar; _very_ familiar.

"Edmund!" she gasped out before she could think to stop herself.

Lucy had no way of knowing, poor girl, that this was not real, but only a mere illusion that she was not the first half-blood star to see. She didn't even know the lady she thought she was seeing was queen of a country called Charn-though she might have guessed, in her own way, that she was a witch of some kind.

The real Jadis was back in Charn, working her evil magic from a distance, finding it that much easier now that her Traitors had been in the Ramandus' mansion and, in a sense, brought part of her power with them-power they could not yank away all at once upon leaving.

As for the real Edmund, he was, of course, walking away via the _front_ of the mansion and would have been nowhere near the spot Lucy was looking at. But this apparition-Edmund appeared solid, not misty or like a trick of light, despite the snow occasionally blowing hard enough to block her view, and Lucy honestly felt she had no real reason to disbelieve her eyes.

The lady beckoned to him and Edmund trembled; somehow Lucy knew he didn't want to go with her. Part of her wanted to unlatch the window and lean her head out, screaming, "Leave him alone!"

The snowflakes thickened even more and Lucy couldn't quite see what happened next, but evidently, by hook or by crook, the lady had gotten Edmund into the sledge against his will and given her reindeer the command to giddy-up.

"No!" Lucy shouted, pounding one fist on the glass pane on the far right corner of the window.

But the white lady and her silver sledge were gone; and so was Edmund.

Lucy didn't know what to think or do, she felt as if she scarcely knew so much as how to _breathe_ normally anymore.

Too much had happened, and she was so confused. Edmund did not love her; not as a friend or a future husband (a friend would have never done what he did, stringing her along like that). _She_ loved Edmund, though, and he had just been kidnapped right in front of her.

She had to help him, didn't she?


	25. Stolen Memories

"Lucy, I'm telling you, he's gone of his own free will," Peter said, rubbing his temples in an exasperated fashion.

Lucy was standing in front of an oak-wood desk Peter had his medical books spread out on, insisting vehemently that Edmund was in trouble and needed her help. "Something is _wrong_ , Peter!"

"He left you!" he exclaimed, his eyes lighting up with anger towards their departed guest; he now knew, of course, how Edmund Maugrim had betrayed Lucy before leaving. "Before I knew what happened, what he'd done to you, I tried to stop him, but he _left_. We have to accept that he's gone and was never what we thought him to be. I know this hurts you, Lu, (it hurts _all_ of us), and I would do anything to shield you from the pain if I could, but there's nothing..." He shook his head. "There's nothing I can change."

"He didn't _leave_ ," said Lucy; "the lady in white fur _took_ him!"

"What lady?" asked Peter, crinkling his forehead, utterly baffled.

"She was here last night," Lucy said, exhaling sharply. She'd already tried telling her brother about the strange woman on the sledge, but he had been too preoccupied by the fact that Edmund had cheated on her and then run away like a good-for-nothing.

Truly, Lucy was beginning to wish she had not told Peter-and, by default, Susan-about walking in on Edmund and Ammi and had just skipped to the part about him being kidnapped straight-off, but she was a very truthful girl by nature and her brother had pressed her anxiously in regards to what she and Edmund had 'quarreled' over till she, too upset to put up much resistance, caved and told him the whole story.

Almost instantaneously, she had regretted it; for Susan went and commented, in a rather blank voice, "Poor Lucy. And Mr. Maugrim seemed so good-hearted, too! I suppose he was only after a position of power all along after all," thinking the only logical explanation was that he had pretended to want nothing to do with court-life while really only marrying Lucy to be king of Narnia, not out of any love for her personally. "Well, at least he was found out before the wedding and we were saved _that_ trouble."

Nether of them wanted to listen to her story. They both insisted that Edmund left on his own, that they saw him go with their own eyes. It didn't matter how Lucy implored them to believe her (Edmund was in danger of some kind, she just _knew_ it!), they only shook their heads dejectedly.

So now, when Peter said, "We didn't have any new visitors last night, only the three that left," Lucy was at her wit's end.

"No, she didn't come _inside_ ," huffed Lucy, willing herself not to scream. "I saw her from the _window_."

" _Your_ window? Your bedroom window?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed impatiently.

"Lucy, Edmund left by the front doors," Peter told her. "You wouldn't have been able to see him leaving from that window."

"Peter, I know what I saw."

"I don't think you do. You were emotional and you could have simply been imagining it."

"I'm not crazy!" cried Lucy, lifting her arms and dropping the leather book and dagger she was holding down onto the desk. "I think...I don't know...but I _think_ , somehow...somehow he got wind of it before it happened and he left these with me for a reason. He _was_ going to leave anyway, after what happened; he told me so himself...but then, I _saw_ him outside...and the sledge. She _forced_ him-I didn't see how."

"Lucy," sighed Susan, almost rolling her eyes but being sensitive enough to stop herself before she did so, "even if there was a woman in white fur-which is doubtful, likely you only saw the snow taking queer shapes in the wind-outside who Edmund approached and had a word with, how do you know he didn't go with her _willingly_?"

"I just _do_!" she said, not knowing how else to make them understand, her face flushing with inward conviction and outward frustration.

Peter examined the dagger with mild interest, unsheathed it, nodded, then slid it back into the sheath, putting it down, and reached for the book; that seemed more interesting. He had seen the dagger before, on Edmund, so it was nothing very new to him, but the book held mystery enough.

"There's got to be a way to help him," Lucy went on. "I'm thinking of looking for Aslan; he'll know who that lady was, he knows everything."

"Lucy," scoffed Susan peevishly, thinking her sister was being a touch irreverent, "Aslan is not some mystical oracle that can answer random questions at your bidding!"

Lucy glared at Susan. "I know that, Su! And it's not a random question; it's to save someone-someone from our family!"

"He's not family," Susan argued. "He was only a ghastly con-artist who was found out too soon."

"There is more to it than that," she insisted, tears springing up in her eyes. "There must be...there _has_ to be..."

"These names," said Peter gravely, flipping through the first few pages in the book with ever-widening, disbelieving eyes. "Why, they're star family names! They're all mortal half-stars, just like us. Some of them are even distant relations!"

"See?" exclaimed Susan, gesturing emphatically at the book with a flick of her wrist. "That horrible young man was plotting this for a while. Most of those girls must have been in line for the throne, but Lucy was higher above the salt than them. That's why they're crossed out. They weren't noble enough to suit him." She didn't have to look at the book to know about the lines running through the names; Peter was looking at the book, and she sensed its contents through his eyes.

"Give me the book!" Lucy exclaimed, snarling uncharacteristically and snatching it out of Peter's hands. Then she grabbed the dagger from the desk. These were all she had to go on: a dagger to remember her unfaithful betrothed by, and a single book of names to provide a clue as to why the devil he had been taken; she would not let her siblings treat these things so coldly, so unfeelingly. "I will find Aslan and ask him about it! I _will_ , I don't care! You can't stop me-neither of you can. So there!"

"Lucy, for goodness sake!" Susan reprimanded. "There's no need to keep on shouting."

"Oooh!" Lucy let out that indignant little sound, glowered at them, stamped her foot on the shaggy sea-foam-green carpet, turned on her heels, and stormed out of the study in a furious huff.

"Peter, she's being down-right naughty," Susan said the second their little sister had fled. "I understand she's emotional right now, but honestly! Why do you think she would make up such a ridiculous lie? Unless...you don't suppose...it mightn't even be lying? That there might be something wrong with her? Perhaps brought on by the shock of all this?"

"She's certainly not urged on by any medical definition of madness," Peter replied. "Anyone can tell that just by looking at her and speaking to her. And she's never lied to us before."

"No, but this couldn't be true. All that about a lady-a witch, did she say?-on a sledge. We both saw Edmund leave on foot, by the front...didn't we?"

"Of course we did, Su." Peter shook his head. "I just...I don't know... Lucy was perfectly all right before Edmund came into the picture."

"Oh, how I wish we'd never let him stay here to begin with!" Susan cried with surprising vim.

"We can't let her go off on her own," Peter said softly. "Aslan could be _anywhere_. If he came here, and she wanted to ask him...if he was even rumoured to be somewhere near these parts, or at least in Narnia...I'd take her, to have this settled once and for all. I wouldn't hold her back, I would go with her. But we've no way of knowing where Aslan is. And the weather's been ghastly. Susan, she could get lost or hurt, or worse..."

"Even from a strictly political standpoint," Susan agreed, "that would be very bad. She _is_ the future queen, after all."

"I'm so frightened, Su," he confessed brokenly, his eyes filling with tears.

"I know," Susan said. "I've known since the second she came in here and said...said all those odd things...how afraid you were."

"If only we could find him for her, so that she could rest easy."

" _Find_ him?" said Susan, her voice gone rather shrill. "If he's lost, I'd say good riddance to bad rubbish."

"I still can't believe he...well, that he did what he did...but Lucy won't rest till she knows he's safe," Peter pointed out grimly. He didn't say that he himself, in spite of his anger, didn't truly believe Edmund was strictly 'bad rubbish'; he didn't need to, Susan understood anyway.

"If we're fortunate, and she becomes even half as afraid as you are," she said, tossing a lock of blackish hair over one shoulder while she spoke, "she'll beg off before she even sets out."

"We both know Lucy isn't afraid of anything. Not when it comes to the people she loves. She'll never give up." Peter wiped uselessly at his eyes with the back of his wrist. "And that book... Before I was only scared she would get hurt, and now that she _has_ , I'm more scared than ever...and I'm not even sure of _what_ exactly."

"There must be some way of keeping her here," Susan pondered aloud.

"Unless she forgets Edmund Maugrim entirely, there won't be," Peter knew.

" _Can_ we make her forget?"

Peter blinked; he hadn't meant anything by his words, but Susan's line of thinking gave him an idea. Her words reminded him of something he'd seen in a book in the library.

It had been a medical book about non-addictive mind-altering herbs. He had been looking through it in hopes of finding something that would help him with his depression and mood swings, but unfortunately many of the plants mentioned in that book, though they didn't cause addiction or dependance, weren't necessarily safe for consumption (some kind of natural chemical found in them that was usually rejected by the human body, but generally digested well enough in that of centaurs'); however, there had been one herb he now remembered that was digestible by the human stomach and might just help with their current problem. It was for relaxation, basically erasing from the mind whatever it was that was currently making it the most anxious. This would have done nothing for Peter's chronic depression, because if one issue were removed from his mind, another could easily take its place-his condition could be triggered by almost anything. But, in Lucy's case, it might make her stop obsessing about Edmund being 'kidnapped'; at least until Peter could think of a better way to keep her safely at home.

So, nothing else for it, he shared this idea with his twin in a low voice.

They had exchanges back and forth about the matter for over two hours.

Was it safe? There wouldn't be any nasty side-effects, would there? Peter would have to make absolutely sure first, find that book again and read all there was on that herb, before they decided to go through with this. And, if it was all right to give her, could they really slip it to her without her knowing?

"I'll go down to the library," Peter told Susan, standing up. "You go check on Lucy, make sure she hasn't run off or done anything hasty."

"We are doing the right thing," asked Susan, pausing in the doorway of the study; "aren't we?"

Peter closed his eyes and sighed deeply. "Oh, I _hope_ so, Su. You have no idea how much."

He hated the idea of stealing something from Lucy-especially something as personal as her memories, memories he was positive she would want to keep if given a choice, even after all that had happened; but how could he let her, his own baby sister, put herself in harm's way because she mistakenly thought her ex-betrothed (a man who had _betrayed_ her, no less!) needed her? And it wasn't as if it was for ever...it was only for a while...so it wasn't so bad, really. At least, that's what he told himself to justify his plans.

In the library, he went through that book as well as every other book that contained information on the herb. The only possible side-effects were occasional drowsiness and mild confusion from time to time, and none of it was permanent. It had some natural element in it that triggered the depressed part of the brain and relaxed it by clearing it out for a while. And, in reasonable doses, it could be slipped tastelessly into a cup of tea or a bowl of porridge.

Susan came in and crept up to his chair from the opposite end of the library. "Well?"

If anyone else had come up to Peter from behind like that, he would have jumped out of his skin, but he had known Susan was headed for his chair when she was still two corridors and an antechamber away, so her arrival didn't even make him flinch or bat a single eyelash.

"It's definitely safe," Peter announced hollowly, feeling rotten. "How is she?"

"She was packing when I walked into her room, Peter." Susan grimaced.

"Packing?"

"I don't think she's leaving just yet, but she's obviously getting ready to do so very soon."

"Great," said Peter sarcastically.

"She's upset." Susan's grimace deepened as she thought about the pale-faced fifteen year old she had seen digging her thickest, heaviest winter boots out of the back of her wardrobe, muttering and weeping to herself.

Peter lifted the book and slipped it into Susan's hands to show her the picture of the herb. "We can handle it."

The next morning when Lucy came down at breakfast-time, the green velvet cloak Edmund had given her over one arm, a small deerskin pack stuffed with a few non-perishable eatables she took from the pantry as well as Edmund's leather book and dagger and extra clothes for herself slung over the opposite shoulder, and her heaviest boots strapped to her feet, Peter made her sit down.

When she told him she was going regardless of what he had to say and would not be dissuaded, he seemed oddly unaffected and simply stated that she was not going anywhere without taking a proper meal and a cup of tea first.

Susan nodded in agreement and pushed a brown porcelain cup of tea on a matching copper-rimmed china saucer over to her little sister while Peter handed her the bread roll basket.

Gael naturally knew of nothing that was going on, and only thought her sister was planning on going for a walk in the snow, perhaps to visit friends in the village. She was even considering asking to come along, though she wondered if it wasn't too windy to walk or even to go on horseback, and whether or not it wouldn't be wiser to ask their father to let them have a carriage if they promised to be back at a reasonable hour.

The remaining guests-Polly the Griffin Rider, Lord Perry and Lady Alexander, and Raynbi-said nothing to her, almost a little frightened by the look of intense determination in her face.

Peter, while he hadn't explained _why_ , insisted-especially to Raynbi (who he feared was most in danger of saying something)-that they say nothing-not a single word-to Lucy about Edmund Maugrim, on threat of being turned out of the mansion when the weather cleared up and being confined to their quarters till then so they couldn't cause any further trouble. Susan, for her part in all this, had reminded Lord Perry to keep Paddy out of Lucy's sight whenever possible (this was more easily said than done; Paddy adored Lucy and made a great deal of noise over not being taken to see her).

"Well," said Lucy, calming down a bit now that they didn't appear to be trying to stop her or convince her she'd only been seeing things, "I suppose I could sit down...for a little while..." She put the cloak over the back of her chair and the pack down by her feet under the table.

Peter tried very hard not to appear guilty, but it wasn't easy. Physically, he was saving his sister, but how could he be sure she would be emotionally all right when it all came back and she realized what he had done?

And what of that poor baby Alexander was now mothering? Were they really going to have to keep enduring the kid's howls because they were afraid letting her look at him would trigger Lucy's memory too soon? What of Raynbi? She really did look a great deal like Edmund, even with her hair having grown to just below her earlobes.

Lucy, unwitting, lifted the tea-cup to her lips. The smell from it was wonderful (the herb was odorless, as well as tasteless, in the dose Peter had slipped into it) and the warm steam felt so _good_ on her face.

Looking back, both Peter and Susan wished they had stopped her and come clean. If they had, maybe things would have been easier for everyone in the long run. But they didn't, and eventually the twins learned not to dwell on past mistakes; no one, they soon came to know, is ever told what _would_ have happened.

As soon as she had had a few sips, Lucy began to feel very safe and comfortable. She wondered why she had put on her heaviest boots-they were beginning to make her feet, which otherwise felt lovely right down to the tips of her toes, ache. Had she been planning to go outside?

Her eyelids drooped and she dropped the tea-cup on the floor by accident, causing the handle to break off and the saucer to crack down the middle.

Her eyes shot open when she leaned back against the chair and felt the velvet on her neck. She twisted round in the chair and pulled the velvet cloak into her lap. "This is mine?" she asked, uncertainly.

"Yes," said Susan, offhandedly, looking away.

"Where did I get it?" Lucy asked with a crinkled forehead. "I don't remember buying a new cloak this year. I've still got the ones from last year."

"It was a gift," said Peter, looking down shamefully at his plate, feeling what little appetite he had that day dwindle down to nothing. "A friend got it for you."

"Why can't I remember?" Lucy wanted to know. "I remember all my friends." It was true, she did; she had never forgotten a gift given by a mate or chum in her life, not since she was three and a little dryad girl gave her a stuffed knitted blue, button-eyed teddy bear made of dyed wool.

"You've been under a great deal of stress, Lu," said Peter; it wasn't a lie, even if it wasn't the whole truth.

"Eat something," Susan order-suggested.

Lucy nodded and finished her breakfast. She didn't notice Peter accidentally on purpose dropping his spoon, diving under the table, and snatching her pack from next to her feet, discreetly kicking it behind the credenza on the far side of the room.

The cloak was one thing. The dagger and the book, he didn't want her to see-not now.

The next few days were very confusing ones for Lucy. For almost a week, Peter slipped the herb both into her morning and night-time cups of tea.

At night, she slept soundly, her dreams as peaceful as if she were a queen on her wedding day, though she was neither a queen nor a bride-yet. In the mornings, when she first woke, she found herself struggling desperately to recall something. She wrote the name _E. Maugrim_ down on a sheet of paper, folded it into the smallest square she could make, and stuffed it inside of a toy castle that had been hers when she was little.

By the time a few days had gone by, she was a little surprised to find-despite the fact that she had no recollection of making those (the herb at breakfast had blocked her from remembering her odd morning routine)-there were other squares already in the castle.

But she never let herself consider why that should be so, and skipped downstairs to see her family and friends as light-hearted as ever.

Sometimes she thought she heard crying, but everybody told her not to worry about it (this was only Paddy having one of his tantrums, which had become very frequent since Edmund left and he first began to be kept away from Lucy). She also thought Raynbi disliked her because she wouldn't look her in the eyes, only Susan lied and said it was a Calormene tradition, something to do with fasting for Tash, and that she shouldn't bother herself about that.

During the day, she played cards and chess with Clara, spent time with her father and Gael, read in the library with Peter, occasionally helping him take inventory on his medical herbs, and did a great deal of pacing the hallways, feeling oddly lost, like she was missing something very valuable she had to find before she could have any true peace.

Then, late one gray morning, Gael came into the entertainment room carrying a basketful of paper flowers she was playing with. She gave Lucy a rose, since that was her favorite flower; Susan got a daffodil, because bright yellow looked good with her dark hair and she very often pinned flowers to her hair and clothing; Clara received a tulip, which was _her_ favorite; Alexander and Perry were given scarlet poppies; Coriakin had a blue forget-me-not; and Peter was handed a lovely swooped-over snowdrop because it was the only flower left and he didn't really have a preference, only taking it to please little Gael.

That was when Peter made his fatal mistake. He put the paper snowdrop stem-first through the button-hole of the jerkin he wore.

Lucy looked at the button-hole and the white flower, her eyes widening to the size of the tea-saucer she'd cracked about six days or so ago. A face-a very nice face, with dark brown eyes, a light complexion, and a playful smile-popped into the front of her mind. Another button-hole also came to her mind; this one had a _real_ snowdrop in it.

She let out a gasp and shook her head. "No!"

"What's amiss, Lu?" Peter asked, seeing that she was stricken.

"I'm not sure," she said, standing up and running out of the room. "Beg pardon, I'll be right back." And so marked the very first time she had ever told a bold-faced lie in her life.

Lucy ran as fast as she could to her room, flung open the doors to the toy castle, and pulled out five or six pieces of paper, unfolding them with trembling fingers.

They all said the same thing: _E. Maugrim._

One of them, in smaller letters, the one she had written yesterday, as a matter of fact, had a little note scrawled under that: _He needs me_.

"Edmund!" she exclaimed, anguished.

 _Six pieces of paper...six days...today would make seven...almost a week..._ They had kept her more or less a senseless prisoner in her own home for a week! They'd kept her from remembering Edmund. Yes, it hurt when what he'd done to her came back, it hurt _a lot_ , but at least the good things came back, too.

For a few moments, Lucy wondered how they had done it, how they could have made her forget someone she had almost married. Then she remembered taking inventory on Peter's herbs.

"Oh, Peter, how _could_ you!" she sobbed, as it all became quite clear.

The horrid meanness of what her beloved elder brother had done-almost as much a betrayal as anything else that had happened recently-struck her like a slap across the face.

She felt as if she had to get away-and fast! If they stopped her, even for just another short moment, how would she prevent them from tricking her into taking more herbs that would steal Edmund's problems away from her all over again?

She had no way of knowing it had been in the tea. As far as Lucy could guess, it could have been anything at all. It could have been her food, or her water, or maybe those vitamins Peter made her take every evening (how easy it would have been for him to substitute a different substance for one of those without her knowing!); she trusted her brother completely, which was what made this all the more ghastly and diabolical.

She threw the green cloak over herself, tossed on the heavy boots which had made their way back into the wardrobe since the day she'd first tried to leave, and then remembered the dagger and book.

Where _were_ they?

"My pack!" gasped Lucy, noting its loss for the first time.

If Peter had been the one to retrieve and hide the pack from behind the credenza after that breakfast six days ago, Lucy would likely have never found it. Fortunately, the task had been left to Susan, who was not a very imaginative hider, even with so many options, their mansion being as enormous as it was, and Lucy found it in under twenty-five minutes.

It was only hidden in an old wooden sea-chest in a carpeted antechamber. There wasn't even anything covering it except for the lid of the chest. Everything in it was still good and ready to go.

Tears streaming down her face, Lucy kissed the hilt of the dagger as she lifted it out, wrapping her fingers round the sheath. "Please help me...help me find him and bring him home."

Even if it meant seeing him with Ammi every day from then on out, she could no longer tolerate the thought of him being far away, all the more so against his will. She had to bring him back-bring them _all_ back, Tumnus and Eustace, too-if she could. They would be safe here, safe from anything, including whatever mystery it was that plagued Edmund now.

Well, they'd be safe provided that Peter didn't go completely mental and bloody well try to _poison_ them (she was still the angriest with him she'd ever been; she couldn't imagine she would have felt any worse had she discovered Peter had been trying to _kill_ her). She would forgive him and Susan, of course, she knew she would, they were her brother and sister and she loved them, just not right then.

She would seek Aslan as planned; and if she couldn't find the Lion, she would still keep going in search of Edmund until she learned where he was and what the lady on the sledge wanted with him.

Lucy made her way to the stables and saddled Snowflake (the Coalblacks lost interest in her when they saw she hadn't any apples, carrots, or sugar on her person, and Phillip was talking to himself in his sleep, dozing blissfully). "Come, Snowflake, we're going out searching." She slung her pack onto the back of her horse and climbed on, tossing her green velvet hood down over her forehead to keep her head warm while she rode.

Getting off the mansion property was tricky. She was so afraid someone would see her from a window and come after her, trying to stop her. But when no one did and she saw the village coming into view, she began to feel better.

True, she was not out of the woods yet, so to speak, any of the villagers might try to direct her back home, but somehow she felt more confident. She almost felt like she was her future queen-self, going off to battle for what was right. Nothing would hold her back from justice then, and nothing would stop her from finding Edmund now. It was all one and the same.

"Whatever it is," said Lucy, nudging the bulge that was Edmund's leather book in her pack with her knee, "whatever this all means, I'll figure it out. I promise, Ed." She gently but firmly dug her heels into Snowflake's sides. "Gee, Snowflake! Gee!" Making a clicking noise with her mouth, she urged her horse ever forward.


	26. The Charn Diaries

Lucy rode on and on without stopping till she came to an inn almost five miles away from the out-skirts of the village.

She was afraid to stop too long at any local place for fear of being caught and sent back to the mansion. At first, she had been glad enough to be merely off her father's property, the mansion at her back. Even with the possibility of being caught looming over her, she'd felt inordinately brave upon reaching the out-skirts of the village, but she soon sobered up. Peter and Susan were bound to realize she was gone soon. Or her father might; if he was ever going to.

Indeed, if she hadn't been concerned about poor Snowflake needing a rest and a drink of water, she would have gone on further still.

But the inn was as good a place as any to stop, really.

Of course, Lucy didn't expect a mysterious witch who rode about on a silver sledge to stay over-night at an ordinary inn (such a creature would likely be able to make enchanted accommodations for herself with bad magic), but if she (with Edmund) had passed through, someone might have seen; there were two wrap-around porches as well as any number of large windows on the sides of the two-story building, and, moreover, the land was cleared-out so that there weren't very many trees to block the view of the open grassy space which went on for at least three more miles before the land became forest-like again.

Then it suddenly occurred to Lucy with a sickening thud, and a sharp little catch in her throat, that she hadn't thought to bring any money along in her deerskin pack-not even so much as a little purse of copper coins.

Her family's name, since she was noble, would get her in, and the bill would be sent to Coriakin, no problem, so she wouldn't be left in the cold all night with her horse to freeze to death, but then they would know where she had stayed.

Well, she thought, I'll be gone from here by the time the bill reaches home, and I shan't tell the innkeeper where I'm going after I leave-since I don't really know that just now myself.

She hesitantly left Snowflake with the inn's stable attendant, a kindly-looking, gray-bearded centaur with zebra-like stripes on his horse-half. Lucy always felt a little strange when leaving her horse with a complete stranger, but he seemed plenty nice enough, and there was another chap with him, an old Archenland man with long, slightly unkempt, facial hair that put one in mind of a social outcast or hermit, who also spoke soothingly to Snowflake, calling her, "Cousin," and patting her white neck while whispering some promises about sugar lumps and good lodgings. And Snowflake certainly understood about the sugar lumps-dumb beast though she was-even if she understood nothing else, and went quite willingly with these thoughtful attendants.

Lucy bit her lower lip, nodded, and swung her deerskin pack at her side as she made for the fogged-up glass-front doors of the inn.

Inside, there were merrymakers singing and laughing. Lucy clutched her pack a little tighter and looked about for somebody who seemed to be in charge.

There was no front desk to speak of, just a great deal of sofas and chairs as well as a space where the receiving room gave way to a tavern with no more warning than that of the carpet ending and a wooden floor with tables beginning. The way to upstairs was just beyond the tavern, and the stairs were carpeted like the receiving room.

No one seemed to take any notice of her as she walked about, her pupils sliding rabidly to the left and to the right in an overwhelmed, baffled manner. Finally, she decided to rest her feet for a bit and sit down at an empty table.

In a manner of seconds, she was joined by an ugly little dwarf with a matted blackish beard. He was wearing rather a nice fur coat lined with what looked like polar bear's fur, a red woolen cap, and small child-sized boots also of fine quality, but his round face and coarse, dirty hair didn't measure up to his lovely garments in the least.

Lucy generally liked dwarfs; she was friends with any number of Narnian dwarfs who looked, for the most part, not unlike this fellow, but there was something about _him_ in particular that made her wish-for a passing moment-that Peter was with her. She would have felt much safer meeting a dwarf with such an unNarnian air about him, complete with a terse sort of greedy expression in his eyes, if her elder brother had been with her. Then she remembered she was angry with her brother and inwardly scolded herself for judging the dwarf before he'd even said anything to her. He just might be a very good dwarf with a very sour face-that wasn't uncommon.

Still, she kept on guard, finding herself reaching discreetly into her pack so that Edmund's dagger was near her fingertips. It was that single, swift uncharacteristic motion that made her realize with a start that she was a little _afraid_ of this dwarf. But she couldn't guess why that was.

"I'm a very important dwarf, you know," he said; his voice was wheezy and high-pitched.

"I didn't," said Lucy, her tone almost a touch apologetic.

"Well, you'll know me better hereafter, eh?" This might have been almost an endearing, friendly statement if only he had smiled instead of pouting and lowering his thick eyebrows.

Lucy nodded. "I suppose so."

"What's your name?"

"Oh," said Lucy, wondering if perhaps the dwarf was the owner of this inn. "I'm Lucy. Lucy Ramandu. Is this _your_ inn?"

"No, course not!" snap-wheezed the dwarf, his eyes flashing, quite offended.

"I'm sorry," Lucy amended. "I haven't found the innkeeper yet."

"My name is Ginarrbrick." The dwarf, for lack of a better term, fluffed his beard self-importantly. "I'm an ambassador for a distinguished foreign queen."

"Pleased to meet you, I'm sure." Lucy forced herself to smile.

"I know why you're here," he wheeze-whispered, lowering his head close to hers.

She grimaced; the little dwarf reeked of rotten meat and frozen pine trees. All the same, she was curious as to what he had to say.

"You're looking for that Edmund Maugrim who was taken away by a witch on a sledge, am I right?"

Lucy felt her lower jaw drop and hang agape. "You know her? The witch, I mean? I told the others-my siblings-all about her, but they didn't believe me." In spite of Ginarrbrick's repulsive odor, she was actually tempted to reach for the dwarf's hands, clasp them pleadingly in her own, and get on her knees, imploring him to tell her more about the witch. This was the first lead she had had, and far more direct than she dared hope for, when it came to that.

"Oh, yes," he assured her in that same wheezy voice that was now beginning to sound a bit creepy. "I know. And I know Edmund Maugrim, too. He's under a spell. I don't know the whole nature of it, so I can't give you any useful information on that, but I can tell you where she took him to."

"Where?" breathed Lucy desperately, uneasy deep down but never truly doubting the dwarf's words.

"Have you ever heard of Charn?"

"Yes," said Lucy quietly, almost more to herself than to Ginarrbrick; "It's a lost-or else hidden-country, and it's plagued by a curse or something. It's supposed to be bad luck to own Charnian white-gold, I think."

"Bad luck? Bah!" the dwarf scoffed. Then it looked as if he was arching an eyebrow ever so slightly, but the rough hair was so thick it was hard to tell for sure. "It's a place of cold and bitterness. You _might_ say it's cursed, though-even if it isn't wholly unlucky. Perhaps that's why a witch would be drawn to it. Really, it might just be so useful since it's hard to find."

"You know how to get there," she realized.

"Indeed I do."

"Please tell me."

He scooted his chair back a little. "No."

Lucy scowled darkly. Why in Aslan's name would someone be cruel enough to say so much if they didn't mean to say anything more? It was plain mean, giving a person hope then pulling it away like that; and she said so, too.

"It's not as if _you_ could ever reach Charn," wheezed Ginarrbrick cockily.

"Why not?" she wanted to know.

"Because it's miles and miles away, and you'd have to do some sailing as well."

"I don't care," Lucy told him, sitting up straighter in her chair and leaning forward. "I've got to go after Edmund; and if he's in Charn, then I have to get there, too!"

"Well," wheeze-sighed the dwarf, "since you make such a point of it, I'll tell you, but you needn't pass on such valuable information."

"I can keep a secret," Lucy assured him. Then, "But wait, how do you know so much? Where Charn is-and all about Edmund?"

"Isn't it obvious?" he wheezed. "The queen I serve is his mother."

"His mother..." Lucy tried very hard to think back to anything Edmund had ever said about his mother. Very little, she realized. He seemed to hate his parents-with a very deep vengeance, in fact.

What he had said, so long ago, after he ran off from their pit at the bonfire, about how he hoped something bad had happened to them... Somehow, Lucy hadn't envisioned a royal king and queen when he'd made that remark, though she had reprimanded him for saying such a thing in general.

But, then, when he saved Raynbi she recalled him laughing at the slaver's stupidity: _I don't even know if my mother's dead yet_.

Ginarrbrick cracked a nasty parody of a smile and nudged her below the ribs with his elbow (he didn't come up far enough to nudge her arm properly). "Bet you didn't know your sweetheart was a prince, did you?"

Lucy looked down at the wood of the table sadly. No, she hadn't, but before he betrayed her-before she saw him with Ammi and he came in and told her he was leaving for good-he had been _her_ prince, and that was all he'd had to be. She still loved him, and that hurt.

"In fact," the dwarf went on, leaning in close once again, "he's the rightful heir to Charn. But the witch opposes his family. His dear mother-" He stopped and coughed a phlegm-filled cough, then continued. "His mother...she loved Edmund dearly, sent him away from home for his own good. He always resented her for it, of course-children never know what's best for them. And now the witch has come to take him back. She'll keep him prisoner with her spells, force his mother to give up more and more land to the cause of black magic."

What Lucy didn't like was the look on the dwarf's face when he said 'black magic'; a part of him appeared to light up, as if the very thought of such a dark thing delighted him, rather than frightened or angered him. This only reassured her that he was not at all like the Narnian dwarfs she was used to. Were all dwarfs from Charn so unsettling and suspicious?

Only, what if he were telling her the truth? It did seem to make a little sense. She couldn't imagine why being sent away would upset Edmund so, if it were the truth, but she supposed any child would be hurt if their parents hurried them off without a word of true explanation.

There were times when, however much she loved him, Lucy felt just a little angry with her own father; because there were days when he would be as he always had been, a wonderful father in all respects, but then, on others, he would fall into the secluded mood he'd taken on after his wife's-her mortal mother's-death. She missed her mother deeply, as she'd told Edmund she did-but sometimes she missed her father even more, and _this_ she never really told anyone. There were ever-increasing moments when it seemed like Coriakin did nothing except delegate his authority to Peter, letting his eldest son act in his stead. (He had barely said much of anything about Edmund to Lucy after their betrothal was smashed to smithereens and she got her heart broken.) Peter was a good brother, even when she was furious with him, and Susan was-for all her faults-as dear as an older, practical-minded sister could be, but every once in a while, Lucy thought she would have preferred them to have been _only_ her siblings (the way Gael was, even though she was adopted) instead of doubling as stand-ins for their parents.

Was it possible that Edmund had similar issues, only more intense, with his own parents? Only, nothing he said exactly implied he had ever lived the life of a prince. His back in shreds...his reaction to certain subjects...his past Toffee-Leaf addiction...Paddy, his love child...the time he had spent in an 'entertainer's house' in Calormen...his fight with Prince Rabadash...the fact that the childhood 'lesson' he was supposedly taught was 'shut up when you're told to, or you die'... None of that sounded a bit like the life the son of a queen would lead.

Unless she was a bad queen and had mistreated him. And if she was no good, that might explain why her ambassador didn't seem to be much better. Still, she couldn't be as bad as the witch, could she?

No, no, none of this added up. Edmund told her he thought he was Narnian. If he was from Charn, and knew it, wouldn't he have said he was 'Charnian'?

Perhaps he was scared to. Lucy didn't know much about Charn (she knew nothing at all about Jadis-well, nothing about her by name, anyway), but from the little she did know, she gathered that maybe Edmund wouldn't have been so kindly received if he said he was from Charn. To her, it wouldn't have mattered-to more superstitious Narnians or Lone Islanders, it might have.

Then there was the darker possibility, that Edmund lied simply for the sake of lying; that he _liked_ lying to her and having her believe him. After all, he'd strung her along, amused himself with her, then turned out to have been in love with Ammi-the girl he had known since childhood.

Now, _Ammi_ , Lucy could believe _she_ was a lost princess. That seemed much less far-fetched than Edmund being the prince of a cursed country.

"No, you're mistaken." Lucy shook her head, realizing an important detail the dwarf hadn't mentioned. "Edmund spoke-speaks-with a Narnian accent." The slip of her own tongue, in past tense, frightened her-it was as if part of her subconscious had momentarily believed he was gone for ever.

"His tutor was Narnian," said Ginarrbrick, a mite too quickly, wheezing sharply inwards.

A new cautiousness Lucy had picked up from her association with Edmund suddenly sprung up inside of her. And the kind of words that, once upon a time, she might never have thought to say, the question she would have never felt the need to ask, even to a person who looked as grimy and strange as Ginarrbrick, passed her lips slowly. "How do I know I can believe you?"

The dwarf cocked his head as if to say, "Who _else_ is offering you advice on where to find him?"

And that was true, there was no getting around that. Everybody else seemed either ignorant of the problem entirely or was trying to hold her back-for her own good. Only Ginarrbrick, the queen of Charn's ambassador, was offering her a hope. It wasn't much, but it was all she was getting.

"I see now," said Lucy wearily. "I _have_ to believe you." There didn't seem to be much choice; she couldn't do nothing for ever, nor could she stay here too long.

So the dwarf gave her instructions on how to get to Charn, paths-chiefly uninhabited paths and lanes, even a direction she would have to find a ship sailing towards or else, if she was mad or desperate enough, take a coracle out to sea and navigate on her own.

Lucy listened carefully and kept rubbing her fingers against the hilt of Edmund's dagger inside of the pack, letting her thumb brush repeatedly against Aslan's nose and the very tipy-top of his hard gold, deeply carved mane as if it were a charm that could protect her from the dangers of the bad advice she already knew she was going to take.

"And what can I do," asked Lucy, when he had finished; "I mean, after I find him. How do I get him away from the witch and back..." She paused. She meant to say, "Back to his mother," but it was a bit of a change from her original plan, to bring him back to the mansion, and she found she was now rather confused. Edmund didn't like his mother, evidently...but if he was in his home country again, why would he want to leave and come back to Narnia?

"That is your own concern," huffed Ginarrbrick impatiently. He seemed to have suddenly tired of speaking with her. "I've said all I know."

"Well, thank you," said Lucy politely, though she did wish he could be of a little more assistance.

"I'd best be going," he wheezed, rising up from the chair.

"You're leaving?" she cried, aghast.

"Yes," he said sourly, glowering at her, even more impatiently.

"But, aren't you going back to Charn, too?" He wasn't an ideal travel companion, not by a long-shot, but strict loneliness and guide-less wandering wasn't exactly a glittering option, either. She could-and would-go on by herself, only, if the dwarf was going home, what was to prevent them from going together?

"I've other business in these parts," he scoffed. "I've told you where to find the little prince, I've served my queen's purpose, and now I'll be off. You find your own way."

For an ambassador, he did not seem very worried about the future of his own country, if he was putting it in the hands of a fifteen year old girl. With a sickening lump forming like a hard little ball in her stomach, Lucy wondered if the folk in charge of her own beautiful country-of Narnia-weren't just as careless, putting her on the throne after Frank was off it. When she was queen, though, there would be none of this slackness-not one bit of it! If somebody came to _her_ for advice, she wouldn't give them a few flimsy directions then order them to find their own way, and nothing would be 'their own problem'. Oh, and all witches would be banished-most especially those that rode about on fancy sledges drawn by white reindeer and kidnapped young men.

After Ginarrbrick left her, Lucy was greeted by the innkeeper and his wife, two splendid, elderly-slightly stout-fauns with wrinkled, friendly faces and merry, dark eyes. They seemed surprised and puzzled when Lucy asked them about Ginarrbrick, both saying they had never seen her friend the dwarf. When she mentioned that she had been sitting with him just a moment ago, they appeared to marvel, stating that they could have sworn she'd come in just a second ago and sat down at that table alone, accompanied by-and speaking to-no one at all.

"Well," she said, letting the innkeeper take her pack after she had drawn Edmund's book and dagger out of it, carrying these in her own arms just to be safe, "I think I'll stay just for tonight. Tomorrow, I'll have to be gone from here."

"Are you in some kind of trouble, miss?" asked the innkeeper's wife gently.

"No," she replied, shaking her head. "I'm fine. And you can send the bill to the Ramandu Mansion in the Lantern Waste."

"Very well." They didn't press her, though they exchanged further baffled glances between each other.

Once alone in her room, Lucy washed her face and changed into the nightdress the innkeeper's wife had set out for her. Faun nightdresses were a little shorter than those of a human maiden, but that the simple white lace didn't go passed her knees didn't bother her; she simply pulled a warm blanket over her crossed legs as she sat down on the bed, thinking everything over.

She poured over the leather book again. All those names. Would she ever be able to make any sense of them? Would she ever understand what it all meant?

Page by page, even the blank ones, she turned over and over again.

It didn't help her decipher any meanings or come up with so much as a single theory, but the motion of it, like the rocking of a rocking-chair, keeping her hands busy, soothed her.

That was when she noticed something for the first time. Five thin-ish pages or so, stuck together, were folded deeply into what was nearly the end of the book. At first Lucy thought it was a bookmark but she realized what it actually was when she couldn't pull it out.

The pages uncurled from their long-held folded position like an accordion.

Edmund had never been one for keeping a diary, a detailed account of his life, that was more Eustace's area of expertise; however, he had, as an older child, not quite at his teen years but coming closer to them, written four accounts of his life that were not unlike journal entries. They were undated, sloppy verses, and Eustace would have cringed with priggish horror had he ever had such a disorganized piece of writing presented to him. Edmund, for his part, had long forgotten he ever wrote them, after folding them away so long ago in what was-at the time-the only writing paper he'd had at his disposal: the book of half-blood star names.

Had he remembered them, he might have ripped them out before leaving the book with Lucy.

 _I've thought about_ them _my entire life. Why can't they be here for me now? I pretend all the time that I believe Tumnus only knows about how I was conceived because Eustace told him. But, honestly, I know-have known for a while, sort of guessed it, really-that he already knew. He knew who my father was._

 _No, more than that, he_ knew _my father._

 _I don't talk about it, of course. I don't want to. But I wonder why such excuses, even if unspoken, are made for the man who sired me. It's not easy, doing what we do, and I know it wasn't easy for him, either, back in his time, but whatever he went through, how does it justify forcibly fathering a child then leaving the mother to fend for herself? But I'm angry at_ her _, too, I think I always will be. Forgiveness is supposed to be so good, and I don't think vengeance is meant to belong to a human. An unknown higher power is_ _supposed to have that satisfaction-only I won't give it to them, whoever-or whatever-they are. It's the only right I was born with-the right to hate instinctively. I hate my mother for abandoning me. I hate my father even more bringing me into this life in the first place._

_He knew what it was like to live as I have to, day in and day out. The nightmares never stop. Never! I used to wake up crying so hard I had to vomit. I've stopped, but the bad dreams haven't gotten any better, I guess I just don't feel like crying about them anymore._

_Ammi is crying, but I'm acting like I haven't noticed, because I know that's what she wants me to do right now._

_Jadis punished her for some invented offense today by making her be in the room when the latest poor victim-courtesy of us-was to be killed. She heard what I know none of us ever wants to. Confirmation of what we've done. We know how it ends, we all do. We just don't think about it._

_Ammi told Tumnus she heard the girl scream, saw the knife go down, then vomited and blacked out. When she came to again, dizzy and barely able to stand, Jadis made her clean up her own vomit. There was still blood on the stone table._

_If there is a higher power, I ask only one favor. Never, ever let it come to_ me _having to be in that room when it is in use. Ammi is strong and much hardened. Her tears are going to dry up, and eventually she'll be fine-we all have nightmares, hers will just be a little changed for the worse. Things will go on day in and day out, always the same till we're free._

_But if I ever have to see it-or hear it-I might just have to kill myself. I don't think I could go on after that._

_Curse Charn! It is always so bloody cold here. My bloody fingers are going numb again._

Lucy gaped at the entry uncomprehendingly. It was in Edmund's own hand-he had written this, years ago from the looks of it. He mentioned Charn, so the dwarf was right about that. Only, the other stuff-about his parents...and Tumnus knowing...that did not seem to fit with what Ginarrbrick said regarding Edmund's origins.

These were not the words of a prince; they were the words of a slave, a tormented, anguished slave.

And who was this Jadis?

Was Ammi forced to witness a murder? How was Edmund involved? And Eustace and Tumnus?

And how did he mean 'free'? Free from what?

Lucy was feeling afraid, but she turned to the next entry anyway. They didn't seem to be in chronological order, but that hardly mattered. Either way, none of the pieces fit together.

_It's cold. Nothing but stale bread for supper tonight. Tumnus lost his temper. Eustace started crying. I think it's because I hit him. Which might be why Tumnus is making me sit in the corner by myself-again. I think Ammi is throwing pebbles at my back when Tumnus isn't looking-I'm going to catch her at it and make her go in the corner next. I'm_ _stick of this punishment. I think we all get punished enough by Jadis as it is. Tumnus is_ _too bossy. And I'm not a little kid anymore._

Then the next entry.

_I'm so hungry I've been considering sneaking off and taking a boat to civilized lands without leave just to pinch something from the first market I come to. This isn't a good idea. I know it's not. But if I'm going to starve anyway, I might starve more comfortably in a boat than here._

Lucy felt pity for the younger, hungry Edmund, wishing she could go back in time and give him something from her own larder. Whatever day he bitterly composed these tired, hungry words, _she_ undoubtedly had a full stomach and was safe and happy in the mansion without a care in the world. It wasn't fair.

_I can't sleep, the nightmares are very bad tonight. I just got back from a mission. It was successful. A mixed blessing. I am thinking of words that rhyme with Charn. Barn. Yarn. Darn. Dash it, I can't think of anything else. This is a very stupid game. My head hurts._

That was it. The remainder of the folded pages were blank just like the unfolded pages next to them.

One thing was clear: she still had to get to Charn. The dwarf was a liar, probably. This was making that much rather obvious. But all signs still pointed to that place, and not a single word 'young Edmund' had penned told her anything more immediately useful than Ginarrbrick's instructions for getting to that cursed, icy country.

About two days later, Ginarrbrick was taking a 'borrowed' pony along a woodland path when a young woman in a hooded black cloak knocked him down and pulled him into the bushes.

A fair-headed boy and a faun took the now riderless pony in hand.

Ginarrbrick reached under his coat, grasping at his belt, for his long knife (almost as large as a dwarf-sword), but the young lady was quicker, she had pulled it out and was using it to pin him down.

"Stay down, Ginarrbrick," she said, her voice familiar so that he knew her as soon as she began speaking; "if you want to live."

"The witch will punish you for this treason," he wheeze-hissed up at her, the word 'treason' made up almost more of sharp breathy whistles than of actual syllables, the way he pronounced it. "Ammi," he added.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, still pressing the knife against his throat. "You're planning on telling Coriakin's daughter the way to Charn, lying to her about Edmund, aren't you? You're the one who told the other girls the way, after Edmund left them? Are you not?"

"It is as you say," said the dwarf, coldly, his pupils never leaving the sharp side of the blade.

"You're not telling the girl anything this time," Ammi said, easing up on the knife and glancing over her shoulder at Eustace and Tumnus. "She's not coming. Edmund saw to that."

"Edmund is a fool." Ginarrbrick's voice became a squeaky half-laugh. "As it happens, she's already started on her journey. And I've told her the way. We met two days ago. The witch was pleased, she used my presence to cast a minor enchantment over the inn so that I would be the only one to approach her until she had heard the way to Charn without interruption. From the moment she sat down, no one knew she was there till after I left. She's going after him. Queen Jadis will win this round, too."

Ammi cursed loudly and stabbed the knife down into the soil. Standing up, she ignored Tumnus admonishing her to 'watch her language'. "I don't know which one of them is the greater idiot here," she snarled. "Edmund or Lucy."

"But she can't go after him," exclaimed Eustace, shooting her a rather pathetic look. " _We're_ going after him."

"Hold your tongue, Eustace!" Ammi scolded, gesturing at Ginarrbrick, who was standing up now and rubbing some powdery brown dirt off of his red cap.

"You three ought to be headed back to Charn anyway," the dwarf sneered.

"Maybe we should take him prisoner," Tumnus said, wincing a little at the thought. "We can't have him going back and spoiling everything."

"Everything's already spoiled," groused Ammi hopelessly. "All that nonsense was for _nothing_! Lucy should have never come after him."

"Yes," said Eustace. "And why _now_? Why over a week later?"

"Now we have to catch up to Edmund even more quickly and warn him that Lucy's coming after all," Tumnus groaned, reaching up and grasping at his horns, shaking his head. "What a mess."

"We could go back and find Lucy..." Eustace thought aloud.

"We couldn't," said Ammi. "Pulling away a bit or not, Jadis will never allow it. Besides, Edmund will have noticed by now we didn't quite keep our promise to him." She thought of the little magical object they-well, _she_ , really-had stolen from his belongings before they were separated, them supposed to be lying low for a bit and him headed-slowly but surely-for Charn on his own. "She might let us talk to _Edmund_ , though. If we can get at him."

"It may already be too late." Tumnus closed his eyes. "I've failed. I can't save any of you, and I can't save any stars' daughters. It's hopeless."

Ginarrbrick clapped his hands together, thrilled by Tumnus's apparent emotional pain and suffering.

Surprisingly, it was Eustace who took charge without warning. "He's _my_ cousin, you know. And I say he doesn't lose. Not this time-not after all he's done."

There was something suddenly noble about the face of the youngest traitor that made Tumnus believe him, even believe _in_ him a little bit. "Bind the dwarf and let's be moving on," he said, opening his eyes and swallowing hard.


	27. Gold & Griffins

" _Tumnus, what's going to happen to me?" Laid out in the best bed they could get for him under the circumstances, the boy twisted his head on the pillow and looked despairingly at the faun._

" _Nothing," whispered his mentor, not very convincingly. "You're going to be fine. Rest now."_

" _I'm very sick, aren't I?" The boy's dark blue eyes were hollow; little tears dripped from them, along with perspiration from his damp-with-sweat eyebrows, onto the pillow._

" _You've got a nasty chill, nothing worse," Tumnus lied, swallowing at a hardening lump in his throat, struggling to hold back tears of his own. "You're going to get better."_

_The boy seemed to hear only the truth, no matter how many lies Tumnus blurted out, as if that could make it better-take away what was inevitably going to happen. He knew he was very ill, that his short, deprived, traitorous little life was nearing its end. "Do you think it will hurt very much?"_

" _No," said Tumnus softly, shaking his head and reaching for the boy's hand. "I think it will be like going to sleep during a bad cold. Welcoming, you know." He hoped that was true, that this boy would have a more peaceful end than his poor murdered cousin Mabel had, but he didn't know for certain, he was only guessing. But there was blood_ now _too, even without any wounds; he'd coughed up blood twice._

_A bit of red spittle was in the corner of his mouth right now. Letting go of his hand, Tumnus took the handkerchief he used to clean the tea-kettle (on the rare occasions he actually had time for tea) and wiped up the translucent line of ruby-coloured saliva._

" _Thank you," croaked the boy._

" _Don't talk so much now," Tumnus whispered. "Relax. Can you swallow anything? Soup?"_

" _No."_

" _Well, that's good," Tumnus replied, forcing a chuckle. "We haven't got any."_

_The boy cracked a smile. Then, "Where's my brother?" His faint-barely there-smile disappeared as quickly as it had come._

" _Somewhere about." The faun looked pained. "He'll be here, shortly."_

" _I hope he doesn't come," he said hoarsely. "He never used to beat me...not before Mabel died...now he strikes me if I so much as_ look _at him funny."_

" _He needs time," Tumnus tried, patting the boy's shoulder. "He's just angry." How different these two brothers were, he thought, the one angry and brown-eyed and unpredictably dangerous and physically healthy enough even if he wasn't bound to stay such for long if he carried on as he was, and the other blue-eyed and bullied and taken fatally sick-dying right in front of him._

" _Time can't give him healing, or its opposite," sighed the boy weakly, his wet brown lashes fluttering slightly as he blinked. "Time has little effect on things here in Charn. They just go on and on as they always have. We come, we die, then the White Witch replaces us."_

" _Or releases you," Tumnus pointed out bleakly._

" _To what? Our own fears and vices? To life as fugitives? I'm almost glad..." He_ _clenched his jaw. "I take back what I said a moment ago, about my brother. I'm feeling weaker now, I wish he would come."_

" _I don't think he will," Tumnus found the courage to admit._

" _Neither do I."_

_The door creaked open and the late Mabel's sister came in, creeping up to the bedside. "How are you, Cousin?"_

" _Very poorly," he said, making his tone mildly cheerful by force. Then, "Ah_ w _ell, two down."_

" _Don't talk like that," said his cousin._

" _It's true, though."_

_Tumnus felt tears running down his face-it was becoming impossible to hold them back any longer. "No..." He wasn't sure what he meant by his 'no', only that he wasn't acceptant of the four children he'd mentored, trained, and longed to see set free dropping like flies. No, it wasn't right. No, there was nothing else he could do or say. Just no. That was it. No further meaning, nothing more._

" _I'm very cold," the boy announced suddenly, reaching for his cousin's hand. "Rub your fingers along my arm. It's not entirely numb yet. I want to feel something before I go."_

_Weeping, she obliged, her hand shaking as she did so._

" _I think you're right, Tumnus, it won't hurt." He closed his eyes, knowing it was most likely he wouldn't ever open them again. "I haven't had a good sleep without bad dreams since I was three." And a sweet smile, a full one, curled in both corners of his mouth._

_It was like holding onto a bar with cramping fingers, then finally letting go and feeling a rush of relief. If he didn't have to breathe anymore, the strain of trying to do so with a heavy chest would be gone. No nightmares in a sleep he was never to wake from, just that soft, velvety darkness, like a heavy veil falling over his face and resting like little sandbags on his eyelids, all the bad sounds etched in the subconscious, hurting his brain, gone for good._

_Tumnus went outside. The boy wasn't coming back, and there was somebody else who should have been there but was not and now needed to be told it was over._

_A dark-haired boy of fourteen was sitting on a mound of snow. He was bundled up against the cold to some extent, wearing a hat and a fur-lined jerkin, but not as well as he should have been. He had no scarf round his neck which was bare except for his under-shift collar that only covered half of it. In his hand he held a little silver flask he'd picked up on their last mission, the first one they'd ever gone on without Mabel._

_She'd been gone a year now, and he still refused to do anything Tumnus said. He stuck to his belief that it was somehow the faun's fault she was dead and that both his former mentor and the world at large owed him for everything Jadis had ripped out of his heart._

_He had been violent and moody, and Tumnus had had his doubts that the half-star would even fall for him in the first place this time around, much less follow him all the way back to Charn._

_Fortunately for them (not so much for the poor girl) she hadn't been terribly bright. And, yes, she'd followed. She had been a bit flighty and kind of shallow, and however nasty the traitor had become, he was still reasonably handsome, though the excessive drinking he'd made a bit of a habit of lately certainly hadn't added to his over-all appeal._

_He heard Tumnus's hooves crunching down on the snow. "He's dead?" grunted the young man who would one day sire a boy called Edmund belonging to the next generation of the witch's Traitors._

" _Yes." He fiddled with the red muffler round his neck._

" _Thought so," he sneered, turning round at the waist to glower at him. "I figured that much out myself. I didn't need you to come out here and tell me that. I don't need you to tell me anything." He lifted up the flask. "Here's to my good-for-nothing brother. May he wake in torment in the next life if there is such a place. He always did have to be first out of the two of us. He's free now, and I'm still here with_ you _." The silver rim at his lips, he drank deeply._

" _You poor chap." Tumnus wished the boy didn't hate him so. He still wanted very badly to comfort him._

" _Your nose is red," he simpered reproachfully, taking another swig from the flask. "He's happily dead. Damn faun, my brother wants none of your pity."_

" _Without my help," Tumnus said, not unkindly, but with a stern firmness he had been mustering up the courage for since Mabel's death, "you may well join him sooner than you really want to."_

" _We'll see about that." He stood up and flung the flask aside; it glittered where it laid in the late-day light, covered in snow-crystals that glistened like diamonds._

" _What are you going to do?" Tumnus was alarmed. He was knowing him less and less, the further this boy got from the person he once was, but he could still tell when he was about to do something crazy._

_There was no answer, just the unbuttoning of a jerkin and feet running to the frigid ice-covered shoreline._

_He shed the jerkin, then his shoes and socks._

_Tumnus watched in horror as his charge's feet turned dark, bruise-blue, then vivid purple._

_His doublet ended up on the snowy ground as well._

" _Have you lost your mind?" cried Tumnus, staggering forward, almost tripping over his own two goat-hooves._

_But the fourteen year old was quicker, and he'd jumped into the water._

" _No!"_

_He emerged laughing._ _Freezing water dripped from his soaked hair; his lips were as blue as a forget-me-not; he was shivering uncontrollably; his knees and ankles gave way, causing him to collapse on the ground; and still he laughed, laughed till his sides ached, laughed till he lost consciousness entirely._

_When he fully recovered, the last trace of his self-imposed 'fatal' chill gone, he would only say one thing: "I told you so."_

_The boy seriously thought he was invincible because even death had a separate set of rules just for him._

_When he did things_ his _way, not Tumnus's, he couldn't lose._

Now Tumnus was sitting by a dead, leafless apple tree, eating a quick meal of dried meat and raw fruit. He would have given anything for a nice brown egg, lightly boiled, crisp toast with blueberry jam, and a decent piece of fish right about then, but it was still a reasonably filling luncheon nonetheless.

Nothing like the meals Clara and the Dufflepuds had arranged as daily fare for the Ramandus' guests back at the mansion, though.

I've been terribly spoiled, thought the faun, sighing to himself.

After all, back on that day Edmund's father had nearly killed himself by removing his clothes in such dangerously cold weather as was normal for the last couple of months in one of Charn's brutal winters, he would have thought the dried meat and fruit were a feast. Edmund's father's brother hadn't said so, but Tumnus knew he was hungry; they hadn't brought enough food back with them from their mission, and what they _had_ brought back mostly spoiled on the trip.

Would he have gotten better, sick as he'd been, if he had enough to eat? Tumnus had wondered brokenly about that nearly every single day since the boy's death, save for the time period where he was stone and had no memory or thoughts at all.

Maybe he could have saved him if he'd taken more care in packing foods guaranteed not to rot or grow mealy. But he'd been more preoccupied with the continued recent behavior of Edmund's father, and the unfair stupidity of the girl they were dubbing that time around.

If he'd paid more attention from the start, when the boy's cough first became persistent, would Edmund have a caring uncle living right now? Someone to take him in and help him through the nightmares once he was freed from serving Jadis?

That made him even more desperate to set things right with Edmund. The second-generation boy _would_ be free in fairly sound mind and body; even if he couldn't fulfill the witch's last demand. He loved Lucy even more than his father had loved Mabel and would sooner slit his own throat than lead her to the witch, but that couldn't truly lessen his mentor's resolve.

Yes, Tumnus cared about Lucy, too, and there was no way their original intentions could be carried out now, not even if it would save Edmund from the witch instantaneously. But Edmund's plan of them pulling away from Jadis and letting him take the fall on his own was sad and vile. The chap had already taken two floggings for Ammi and Paddy, _and_ given up his betrothed, Aslan knew he'd suffered more than enough.

So as soon as they'd been out of the mansion, getting off the property, Tumnus had announced to Eustace and Ammi that he had every intention of going after Edmund. He said he wasn't sure how he was going to help him, but that he would find a way.

Sure, he might fail and be turned to stone again, but even that would be better than knowing, after everything, he'd never made amends for his old mistakes, letting Edmund's life be ruined-or _ended_ , as likely as not-too.

"I'm coming with you," Eustace had replied, surprisingly.

Tumnus bit back a smile. "Oh, Eustace, do you really mean it? You can be free now."

He shook his head. "No, I'm afraid I can't." With that, he opened his palm and let, dangling from a worthless little copper chain looted from somewhere on their many missions, the magical yellow 'dragon' ring that Edmund was supposed to have sole possession of now in addition to the green one, sway in the breeze.

"How did you get that?" laugh-demanded Tumnus.

Ammi stepped forward. "I can pick-pocket, remember? I'm the one who taught Edmund, and he still didn't notice!"

"You, too, then?" Tumnus asked.

She nodded. "Freedom can wait a little longer."

"You blessed girl," The faun had cried. And if she had been a little more of a warm person, he might have kissed her forehead in thanks. But the strained, wary expression on her face was about as cozy as barbwire, and the way she was holding her arms so flat against herself, looking depressed, was warding off affection in general at the moment.

"Cousin Edmund will be mad when he learns it's gone," Eustace had commented, shrugging. "But it gives us some connection to the witch still; and to him as well, since he's still got the green one." As long as they were still lightly bound to the mission, they might be able to get to Charn and support Edmund when Jadis realized Lucy wasn't coming.

"Make yourselves useful." Tumnus had tossed Ammi and Eustace a couple of knapsacks to carry, hoping the grueling work of carrying the heavier portion of their luggage would keep them quiet so he could think-he was thinking as hard as he could, so much so that he could just barely remind himself to keep walking and breathing, and he didn't wish to have other thoughts cutting into his own just then.

Alone, his chances of saving Edmund had been slim enough, though he knew he had to try, but the three of them together, just maybe... But three fairly ordinary persons, two humans and one faun, former traitors who had not even been officially released from their mission, against a powerful witch...? How did they even dare hope?

Still, the faun planned in his mind as they went along, each flimsy piece of possibility or hope, or anything else remotely useful, shoved into the haphazard strategy he was inventing, like halved, ripped, and torn broken puzzle pieces that did not fit together yet were being forced into a disfigured picture regardless.

Of course, even that weak secret plan had to go wrong. Lucy _was_ coming after all, and now they had to warn Edmund, hopefully _before_ he got to Charn.

Even tied up, Ginarrbrick managed to be an unsettling presence. His feet were bound with cords, his hands tied up, his mouth gagged so that he couldn't scream for help (or worse, try to have a conversation with them), but unless they decided to begin investing in blindfolds from this point on, they couldn't do anything about him glaring at them.

Perhaps that was why Eustace and Ammi had decided to eat on the _other_ side of the dead apple tree; because it was the spot furthest away from the witch's dwarf-servant.

His nasty little eyes seemed to be hissing, tauntingly, "You'll never get away with this; _never_!"

For Edmund's sake, Tumnus decided to mouth, "You watch me."

Ginarrbrick's glare tightened even more, though that hardly seemed possible, and his pupils slid away from the face of his faun captor. Tumnus wouldn't actually kill him (and, more importantly, wouldn't let _Ammi_ kill him), so all he had to do was hope the witch wouldn't kill him for being a fool and falling into their trap after she had them all in Charn again and had cut his bonds. In the meantime, all he could do was wait for something interesting to happen.

At roughly the same moment, a good distance away from the other Traitors but perhaps not so much as they might have thought, in a thick, bush-enclosed grown-over clearing that wasn't easily noticed, Edmund was dangling his hot, bare feet in a cold stream he'd stumbled upon by pure chance, his hose hanging from a nearby tree.

Tumnus, if he'd been with him, would have told him it was a mad thing to do in such chilly weather, what with plenty of snow and frost on the forest ground, but he didn't care. Tumnus wasn't there, and however cold the rest of him felt, his feet were hot from walking and he needed a relief.

Besides, he didn't think he would mind so much if he caught cold. The pain of being sick, the bother of sneezing or coughing, the annoyance of having to stop and clean his nose, would all have been something else to think about aside from his time at the mansion and everyone who had been there-most especially Lucy.

 _Lucy_ ; every day for over a week now, taking his sweet time getting back to Charn (what hurry was he in to be _there_ again?), in spite of the fact that he had to keep constantly moving to avoid either being spotted or causing the witch to think he was being disobedient about returning, he had thought of a different memory he had of her and played it over and over in his mind.

He had a lot of favorites. There were the most physical memories he had of her: them together with her veil over both their heads after wandering off at Aravis and Cor's wedding; landing with her on top of him on the balcony when she stabbed Dragon-Eustace with his dagger; ending up in a similar position the day Peter broke down and agreed to let them become betrothed; kissing by the stairs after their second picnic together... Then there were the ones, equally meaningful, where they hadn't touched at all, only talked or walked together, laughed at something; or when he'd said or done a thing that made her smile-those especially he focused on.

Because he had brought her so much pain, he liked to think about those times he made her truly happy. Surprising her with the green cloak; putting that red ink on her forehead; wearing her snowdrop in his button-hole... That at least, her reaction to those few things, no one could ever take away from him. Not even Jadis herself could flog him enough to make him forget the moments Lucy's happiness had been due to something he, Edmund Maugrim, had done.

The only memories he completely refused to let himself dwell on were the very last ones he had. ' _I thought you loved me'_ -her face as she fled the room. And the way she wouldn't look at him when he said goodbye. Those only haunted his nightmares, not his waking thoughts. He wouldn't let them into this new game he played in place of the witch's missions, in order to keep himself whole.

Suddenly there came a cawing noise, over-head.

"What the-" began Edmund, looking up.

It was a griffin, flying round in a circle frantically, as if distressed.

A lump formed in his throat; alongside fear for the griffin, if it was in some kind of trouble, came the recollection that he would never ride one. He'd trained, and hard, but it didn't matter now. He would never be a Griffin Rider, or get married.

By the Lion, he sure had gotten the bad end of the deal, whichever way you looked at it!

But he hadn't much time to feel overly sorry for himself, because the griffin swooped down, a medium-sized object in its claws, as if it was going to come splashing down into the water.

Perhaps it's not in danger or pain after all, Edmund thought briefly; it might only be playing.

But it did _sound_ rather upset, however oddly playful its actions were.

Instead of hitting the water itself, it seemed only to sort of dip the object it carried into it, not getting its body, or even it's claws (which would have been a tricky business for a creature less graceful) wet.

Then it dropped the object down next to Edmund. Or, more specifically, _on_ Edmund. The object narrowly missed hitting him on the head, bouncing off his shoulder, and landing in his lap.

Edmund examined it. "Gold?" For it did look-and feel-very like solid gold.

It was a perfect golden model of a chunky, elegantly carved, conch shell. So perfect, in fact, that if Edmund had been a very little bit younger (and not so on-edge because the griffin had landed only a few feet away, watching him from behind a boulder), he would have wanted to put it to his ear to see if he could hear the ocean.

The griffin let out a warning shriek.

Something was very wrong here. Edmund looked at the gold shell again. With a sickening thud, he made a horrid discovery. The conch wasn't gold all the way around. The spots where the griffin's claws would have been-avoiding the stream water-were white and shell-like.

Looking down at the stream, he saw that the rocks beneath the water, gleaming lightly under the pale winter sun, looked exactly the same golden colour as most of the conch did.

And so did his feet.

"Oh no." He closed his eyes tightly, praying he was wrong.

It was a trick of light; it had to be. This couldn't be happening, not on top of everything else.

But if his guess was correct, and life in general really did hate him that much, the reason the conch was so perfect was because it wasn't carved at all-it was from nature, and the water had turned it gold. This might be the Griffin's way of warning him.

Swallowing hard, Edmund pulled his feet out of the water, with extreme difficulty.

Here he had thought they were merely heavy from exhaustion, and that he simply wasn't ready to go on yet, not rested enough, but that wasn't the problem at all.

His feet, all the way to the space right above his ankles, were solid gold.

"Why didn't they pull me under?" he wondered aloud; goodness knew turning to gold made them heavy enough to do so. If this wasn't some messed up dream, by all reason, he should have fallen in and become a golden statue lying at the bottom of an enchanted stream.

Blood was coming from one of his calves, and he figured it out. A great tree-root had snagged him (Lucy, if she'd been there, would have said the tree did it on purpose, since many of the trees in Narnia were alive), holding the rest of him up. Of course it had dug into his skin, leaving him with a nasty gash, but it had probably saved his life as well.

That, along with the whole gold thing, had been the reason getting his feet out of the water had been so strenuous-even painful.

Now what? How was he going to keep moving with gold feet? He wasn't even sure he could stand up on them!

"Great," shouted Edmund, his face flushed with frustration, "now I'm a bloody cripple!" In his head, he added, _I'm a dashed moron, I should have thought something was up with the stream not being frozen yet._

Still holding the conch, he held onto the low-hanging branches of the same tree that had prevented him from turning into a statue (he almost though the tree was reaching down the same way a human might extend their hand to help somebody up), he _forced_ himself to stand on his heavy gold feet.

Looking at the conch in his hand, then back at the stream, Edmund felt his facial muscles clench. Then he threw the conch shell into the stream, letting it fall with a _plop_.

He tried to take a step, and fell down, landing on his side.

He couldn't walk; he ought to have figured-or at least _assumed_ -that much from the first moment he realized what had happened to him.

Could the griffin carry him? Aravis and Polly both would have said he wasn't really ready to ride, but under the circumstances, maybe...

But the griffin, though it kept looking at him with concern that for some reason made him feel like crying, wasn't coming any closer.

Perhaps the gold feet would be too heavy for the griffin. Or else, there was the darker option: that there was something evil in him after all, some mark of the witch, and the griffin wasn't going to approach him.

He tried to remember everything Aravis-then Polly-had told him about griffin instincts.

Of course he'd approached a griffin before; but wasn't the rule that evil could approach griffins but they would not approach evil? Or was it the other way around? His head ached and his side was sore, most likely badly bruised from the fall. He wasn't thinking straight.

"Here boy," he tried, stupidly, like he was calling a dog. "Here griffin, griffin, griffin..." How painfully idiotic that sounded became apparent almost immediately, and Edmund made himself stop. Aravis would have a fit if she'd ever heard him calling a griffin like that!

At his wit's end, he finally started pulling himself, best he could, towards his knapsack.

It was taking for ever and a day, and he was getting more than a little desperate to just give up, press his face down into the snow-covered earth, and scream his lungs out, when the griffin, though it still would not come near him, snatched up the knapsack and dropped it from the sky so that it landed right in front of his face.

"Dumb beast," murmured Edmund, his lips blue and trembling now. "Why don't _you_ come _down_ , you blighter, if you're so keen on helping me?"

It wasn't until after the creature had flown away-disappointed or else insulted, Edmund couldn't guess which-that it occurred to him in all his fuss, calling the griffin, imploring it to come down to him, he'd never properly signaled it.

"Dash it," he muttered.

Nothing else for it, he reached into his knapsack, searching frantically for the green and yellow rings.


	28. Bacchus and All His Wild Girls

Now a wolf, Edmund breathed a sigh of relief.

Frankly, he hadn't been sure his idea would work. After all, when Eustace was a dragon all of his injuries turned up on his person in more or less the same places when he became human again, so it was naturally to be assumed that, for the most part, the rings worked the same way in reverse. Truly, he'd been plenty nervous about turning into a wolf with hind-paws of solid gold. His one hope had been that, because it was a kind of magical injury, not a natural cut or scrape, the green ring would have power over it. (He'd noticed with pardonable outrage that the yellow ring-which he wouldn't have used anyway-was gone.)

Slipping the ring on, he had felt his body change shape. It hurt, but not quite so much as attempting to crawl around on your hands and knees, dragging a pair of gold feet at a snail's pace did. At the very least, it was a kind of pain he was fairly used to.

Thankfully, the paws-front and back-of the wolf were flesh through and through. The only thing the ring didn't change was the blood coming from one of his legs; the blood still came till it clotted, matting into his fur, first sticky, then dry and crusty.

If he lived through this, which was pretty doubtful, as he fully expected the witch to, at the very least, slit his throat (if she didn't turn him to stone) for 'failing' on his mission, it occurred to him that he would have to invest in a wheeled chair. The thought made him cross and irritable. He didn't want to live life like that.

But, then, when had it ever mattered what _he_ wanted? He hadn't wanted to serve the witch. He hadn't wanted to betray the girl who'd saved his life as a child. He hadn't even really wanted Paddy; he had simply made himself love the boy till the day his forced faux-fatherly instincts became automatic, for the simple reason that he knew no one else would, especially not the boy's mother-and he knew what that felt like. Even in asking Ammi to marry him so many times, he hadn't really wanted her for a wife; he'd just wanted a way out for the three of them-her, himself, and Paddy-and running away was too tempting to ignore entirely.

What _had_ he wanted? If anyone cared, he knew exactly what that had been. One of his fondest memories: Lucy sitting in a chair doused in sunlight, holding Paddy; himself, crouched beside the chair, leaning on her arm. For those few precious moments, he'd had everything he ever wanted.

A doggish-sounding whine came out of his wolf-throat, and he shook himself out of the memory almost brutally, his fur standing up on end, bristling sharply.

It was time to be moving on.

Elsewhere, Lucy was walking through a forest she had never seen before in her life. She was trying to follow the dwarf's instructions, for even if he was a beastly liar she had no other directions to take her to Charn, but she had to admit at this point she was only half-certain she wasn't lost.

Her stomach growled; she thought wistfully of the delightful apples and nuts and other good things the innkeeper and his wife had slipped into her deerskin pack along with the dried foods she'd packed herself.

It was too early in the day to be stopping, though, and she wanted to cover more ground. If Edmund was in trouble, what good would it do her to get to him too late? There was only so far she could push herself each day, that was true, but she couldn't let herself get lazy about this journey either. This might be rather nice, in spite of the cold, the pretty scenery, the winter birds' songs over-head, but she knew she mustn't forget why she'd set out. One week was plenty long enough for anyone to forget what mattered, and she had no intentions of going through something like that ever again.

"Now," she said to herself, "if only I could be _sure_ this way is north." She looked up at the sky, shading her eyes from the sun.

Once, during a family picnic, when she was about ten or so, Peter had shown Lucy a trick for making a compass out of sticks and shadows, and she strained to remember how it was done now. Some things Peter taught her were easy to recall (approaching bees and taking honey out of their hives, for instance), others didn't stick as unwaveringly.

All right, so the first thing, if she wasn't mistaken, was to set up what was known as a 'shadow stick'. Lucy found a good-sized stick roughly the length of the bone running from her wrist to her elbow and, clearing away some snow, she stuck it into the earth. Because the ground was cold, it put up a bit of resistance, but she managed. She had the feeling the trees were helping her, because her stick slid in much easier after a red maple leaf fell and touched the part of the ground she was struggling with.

Then, she took another stick of the same length and set it up the same way in the place where the first stick's shadow fell.

"Now I wait thirty minutes for the sun to move," Lucy murmured to herself; it was beginning to come back to her. "Thirty minutes?" she registered, moaning. "Rats." She sat down on a nearby log and fidgeted impatiently with the hem on the hood of her green velvet cloak.

Thirty minutes later, Lucy got up, her bottom feeling a little numb and sore, and set up a third stick in the ground on the new shadow.

After that, she took one last stick, marked it lightly by digging into it with her thumbnail, and put it across the second two sticks.

Using the sticks as guides, Lucy positioned her body so that her right hand was facing east. Which would make the other end of the stick west. She was now facing north.

But no sooner had Lucy taken one step in the right direction, her confidence renewed, than she was unceremoniously knocked to the ground by a boy-or young man, perhaps-who came running so fast his feet were practically _flying_.

"Oof!" groaned Lucy upon impact with the ground.

"Hallo," said the boy.

"Hello there." Lucy sat up and studied the strange youth for a moment.

He was a very odd little person, perhaps her own age in appearance but definitely older chronologically speaking; he was exactly her own height and size as well. His hair was fair, curly, and cropped shortly enough that none of his curls went passed his earlobes. For clothing, he wore only the skin of baby deer (not a _talking_ deer, you knew that much just by looking at him-he was too wild not to kill at all, but too Narnian somehow to kill a thing that could talk same as he did) and there was a crown made of vine-leaves on his head. Lucy wondered how it had not fallen off when they collided. Perhaps it was part of him, same as a faun's horns were inseparable from his or her head.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Lucy," she told him.

He made a face, as in reaction to her name, then smiled at her, revealing a row of pearly teeth that looked a mite too small for his head yet happened to suit him just fine.

Lucy scooted a little ways away from him. This youth had a nice smile, but it made Lucy feel a bit uncomfortable in a way she couldn't understand. She had the notion that if she had not met this fellow alone, she would have felt quite safe-if she had been with Aslan or Peter, or some other protective presence, there would have been nothing to worry about. Meeting such a person by herself was rather alarming.

"I'm Bacchus," he said, offering her his hand to shake.

Thinking it would be impolite to refuse, Lucy gingerly stuck out her own hand and shook his.

His smile widened, and the expression in his eyes was even more wild than before. If it weren't for his wildness, he almost would have been too pretty to be of the male gender. He was rather dazzling, but much more 'beautiful' than 'handsome'.

"It's very nice to meet you, Mr. Bacchus." She let go of his hand; her elbow was beginning to feel a bit sore from him pumping it up and down repeatedly.

He laughed, throwing back his head, his shoulders shaking madly. "Mr. Bacchus! That's jolly somber, that is! It's Bacchus-just Bacchus."

"Very well." Lucy nodded, willing enough to make amends. "Just Bacchus, then."

Bacchus stood up. "It's not all that often girls I don't know come out here," he said suddenly. "Especially not during the winter. But I love company at any time of year, you know. Pleasant, fun company that is. Always up for a good romp."

"Hmm," said Lucy, absently, getting up herself and bending over to pick up her pack.

"How would you like to come and take a meal with me and my girls?"

She crinkled her forehead. "Your girls?" Did he have daughters? He looked too young, but she'd suspected from the first that he'd really been around a good long while. His name sounded familiar as well, she wasn't sure from where though, perhaps one of the numerous books in the library back at the mansion. "How do you mean?"

"Come and see," he laughed. "It's rather hard to explain if you don't already know."

"Well, that's very nice of you," she said, wanting nothing more than to be going on, now that she knew which way north was, "but I've got to go. It's...I mean, I'm on very urgent business. And I've already wasted thirty minutes...setting up my compass to figure out..." She glanced over her shoulder at her make-shift compass, horrified to see that it was now in splinters. Bacchus had landed on it when they fell, snapping the sticks.

"What _compass_?"

"It _was_ right there," faltered Lucy, more dejected than outwardly exasperated at the moment. Little tears started swimming in the corners of her eyes. "Now it's ruined."

"Don't cry, Rose," said Bacchus, his tone cheery. "I can help."

"Lucy," she corrected him.

"Pardon?"

"My name is _Lucy_ , you called me Rose."

He waved that off. "My girls are friends with a star. Stars are very good with directions."

The thought was comforting; it might even be a relative, for all she knew. But supposing he had no intentions of letting her go on her way once she found it again? After being held in her own home for a week against her will, Lucy had grown more cautious than she'd been before Edmund came into her life.

It was an odd feeling, being wary of strangers, especially when they seemed nice. It made her a little sad, like she'd lost something precious-a kind of harmless happiness that came from believing in the good in everybody. To some extent, she still did, in general, but her new cautiousness, for better or for worse, changed part of her innocence that she could never have back.

But it wasn't Bacchus's fault that he'd smashed her compass by accident. And truthfully, she doubted if he would have known the value and usefulness of it even if he'd gotten a chance to see it whole before collapsing onto it. Wild persons of his sort didn't use compasses, or bother too much with directions as a rule; they ended up where they ended up. At least he wanted to make amends, bringing her to the star. Also, Lucy couldn't help but be a little curious about his girls-who they were, what they were like. She would get to see them if she went with Bacchus now. It was that or hope she could make another compass on the ground from scratch and that nothing else impeded her from doing so.

"I'll go with you," Lucy decided.

"Here," he stood up and bent his arm. "You take my arm."

Hesitantly, Lucy got up and did so, blushing uncomfortably. She wasn't at all used to strolling about with a creature like Bacchus. It was hard to even guess what he was supposed to _be_ -definitely not human.

After walking for a bit, she remembered where she had heard his name before. Not from a book, or at least, not _only_ from a book; she'd heard it from Clara. Bacchus was a friend to most fauns and satyrs. He liked dancing and laughter and was excessively fond of wine.

"What were you running away from?" Lucy wanted to know, speaking up for the first time since taking his arm (this was partially due to the fact that he walked at great pace, springs in his steps, and it was hard to talk and keep up with him at the same time). "When you knocked me down, I mean."

He tittered to himself, grinning mischievously. "I was having a lark messing with some Telmarine poachers."

"What were they doing here?" she asked, surprised. Telmarines didn't always get along with Narnians, but they were supposed to be allies at the moment. Caspian, Lilliandil's betrothed, was part Telmarine, as was his fellow half-breed friend Drinian, though they both acted more like Narnians as far as their mannerisms and speech-patterns went. Caspian had used to have a thicker, more noticeable, Telmarine accent when he was younger, but he'd lost it during the past couple of years because of how much time he spent in Narnian-owned lands.

"Looking to kill something for fur, I suppose." Bacchus shrugged. "Nothing else to lure them to these parts this time of year. Well, I suppose the brutes killed everything with fur in _their_ lands." Even while making such a dark statement, his voice remained light as a feather, still full of laughter.

"Did they chase you?"

"Well, they noticed me and didn't like me," he explained. "So, I had my fun with them. Played some mad, earthy music, got them a little bit unwound. In fact, I had the whole lot of them dancing and singing. Some of them were even linking arms in a merry circle. I was just about to break out the refreshments, when, would you believe it, this pompous Telmarine lordship-Sopespian, I think his name was-comes on his big horse with this general-Glozelle, he was all right, not too stuffy-riding at his side, and starts breaking up the romp, scolding the men who were just having a little bit of fun. He even loaded a crossbow and pointed at me!" He sigh-laughed. "What did I ever do to _him_?"

Lucy giggled at the mental-image of a bunch of Telmarines poachers randomly dancing in the middle of the forest. "Please, go on," she managed to gasp out politely.

"The general tried to join the dancing at first, before the lord had managed to stop _all_ of it, but then Sopespian pointed the crossbow at him instead of me and said if he even _thought_ about it, he'd be a dead man.

"So I calmly slipped away while they were quarreling, and a few of them took off after me, angry as anything. Not sure why they were so upset. If someone had arranged an undeserved surprise party for _me_ out of nowhere, I'd have been _thrilled_."

Lucy didn't doubt the truth of the latter comment in the least.

"I had to gain speed to get away, and that's how I came to run into you," he finished.

They kept on walking till they came to what looked to Lucy-at first-like an ordinary bush. But then Bacchus made a motion with his hand, causing a brownish-green door to appear in the middle of it. And, pushing his hand against it, he caused it to fall open. Because it was a bush, not wood, it rustled instead of creaked.

Lucy's mouth hung agape at what she saw beyond it. The world through the door was green, like late spring or early summer, and the air blowing out from it was pleasantly cool mixed with a sweet, sunny warmth rather than biting and wintery.

The sky over-head, she noticed, as they walked inside, was an emerald-coloured canopy, and the biggest, most beautiful grapes she had ever seen in her entire life grew on vines every which way she looked.

There were any number of young girls about. A group of them appeared to be making wine. Another was dancing in a circle until dizziness over-took them and made them fall down, which made Bacchus grin broadly when he saw what they were up to. Others were making flower garlands and laurel crowns, rolling down little hills, drawing water from a well then splashing one another with it, taking meals with sticky fingers, playing music, or putting together piles of big green leaves to jump in.

They looked roughly around Lucy's own age, though it was hard to tell. Their faces were no less wild and fun-loving than that of Bacchus. Extreme ecstasy and mirth never dimmed or faded from their expressions.

"My girls," said Bacchus proudly, letting go of Lucy's arm and gesturing at the endless sea of young women. "Aren't they delightful? Never sad. Not a wet-blanket among them. For ever young. Always excited, never weary. Like flowers that never droop."

A woman who looked as different from Bacchus's wild girls as the moon looks from a ruby approached them. There was a measure of happiness in her face, but it was more natural, less excessive. Her hair was white-gold and she was dressed in a splendid gown of dark blue with dozens of little diamonds sewn tastefully into the bodice. This had to be the star Bacchus had spoken of.

"Hello," said Lucy, feeling relieved. The presence of a star, even one that was not immediately known to her, was like a ribbon tying her to more familiar things-things from home.

"You're a demistar," the star-woman knew just by looking at her. "And your father is Coriakin."

"Yes," she said. She hoped this star did not have any intentions of taking her back to her father.

"Come with me." The star took her hand and pulled her over to a pavilion made out of giant banana-leaves.

Inside, there were green velvet cushions and silken blue blankets. Along with soft amber-coloured pillows that felt like clean, dew-filled grass when you pressed your cheek against them.

Bacchus tried to follow them in initially, but the star-woman shooed him away. "Do get on for a bit, Bacchus! I need to speak with this one without you breathing down her neck. Why don't you join the dancing? Your girls are feeling neglected; they've not seen you since yesterday."

"Bye, Rose." He went off and joined the circle of dizzy, falling-down girls.

Lucy sat down on one of the cushions as the leaf-flap closed behind Bacchus's retreating back.

"You're a brave girl to let Bacchus take you off into the forest," the star commented. "Most would be afraid, and not entirely without reason."

"He seemed all right. I didn't like being alone with him much, though. I can't say why."

"That's just Bacchus." The star touched her hand reassuringly. "One can never be sure he's not dangerous, or up to something. But it doesn't hurt to have him on your side, even if he is borderline useless in battle."

"Why does he call me Rose?" Lucy asked next. "I've told him my name."

"Ah, he likes you." The star half-winced. "Whether that is good or bad depends on a lot of factors. He calls all of his girls by flower names. They were just like you once, some of them longer ago than others. Most of them are from well-established Narnian families; a few of them are even demistars, too."

"Does he hold them captive here?" gasped Lucy, digging her fingernails into the side of the green cushion with alarm. "By some spell?"

"No, of course not," said the star. "Don't worry yourself about that. They're all here of their free will. Bacchus is _very_ persuasive, but he doesn't really force them to stay with him. Of course, once they officially give in and decide to be part of his family for ever, they can't leave. Goodness knows what would happen to some of the older ones if they tried; they're only young still because of him. It wouldn't be pretty. But none of them _wants_ to leave, regardless. Time and their own choices in life have made them every bit as wild as him-no one else could understand them better."

"Then I'm free to leave?" she double-checked.

"For now, yes," the star told her. "But you'll have to listen to me, and be ready to leave when I tell you so, if you're truly keen on going. Bacchus will want you to stay, if he's taken such a shine to you. So he might try to get you to keep on 'just a little longer' with him and his girls. Without me, you might be tempted to do so. And, furthermore, you'd have no idea how much time was passing outside of this little enclosure. It might be spring (and not necessarily _next_ spring, either) when they all set out together into the forest again, maybe taking you with them. And by then you might have forgotten why you didn't want to be one of his girls. You might have even forgotten your real name. Not all of the girls remember theirs. Many of them do, but not all. Keep that in mind. Don't let Bacchus convince you your name is Rose, that's often the first step in the direction of becoming one of them."

"No fear of that!" cried Lucy. "I haven't _got_ time to 'keep on'." Her face twisted. " _Edmund_ might not have that long."

"Who is Edmund?"

"My be-" she began, before catching herself. "My friend. He's in trouble. He was taken by a witch on a sledge, possibly to a country called Charn. I must get there and help him; he needs me."

"I see," said the star gravely. "I'm sorry to hear of that. It sounds ghastly."

Lucy nodded. "You believe me."

"Any reasonable person should."

"Tell that to my brother and sister," she muttered.

The star smiled at that. "Ah, well, family is funny like that."

"If you don't mind my asking," Lucy said, "which star are you?"

"Aravir."

"Oh, the morning star of Narnia."

"That's right."

Suddenly the leaf-flap was pulled back again.

"Honestly, Bacchus!" snapped Aravir. "I thought I told you-"

"It's not Bacchus," said a tinkly girl's voice.

"Oh, Posy." Aravir registered the rose-leaf face of a dark-eyed tall girl with honey-coloured tresses. "Yes, dear, what do you want?"

"Nightshade and me wanted to see Bacchus's new girl."

Nightshade, a black-haired girl in a loose, knee-length brown dress that left her arms bare, also peeked into the pavilion.

"Nightshade and _I_ , Posy," Aravir corrected her. "Just because you're part of Bacchus's family doesn't mean you can talk like a sailor." To Lucy she added, "You would think after over seventy years of endless youth she would have learned proper grammar."

"And I'm _not_ Bacchus's girl," Lucy told them.

"She's not _that_ pretty," said Nightshade, as if she'd been worried.

"No, but she's nice enough to look at," Posy pointed out.

Lucy frowned. She disliked being treated as if she were a curious painting or a rare vase brought back from one of their master's business trips. "I'm not staying."

Posy grinned. "You're likely to change your mind. I did, you know."

Nightshade snorted. "Wouldn't say you put up much resistance to begin with. You loved Bacchus from the start."

"Well, at least I'm not _in_ love with him, like someone else I could mention," she teased, pursing her lips.

Nightshade reddened and, laughing to herself, tossed a handful of flower petals that seemed to have just appeared in her hand out of nowhere into Posy's face. "Oh, shut up."

"Did Aravir tell you your future yet?" Posy asked Lucy.

"You can actually _see_ the future?" Lucy's eyes flickered to Aravir curiously. She'd heard of stars that could tell things about a person just by looking at them-as her father had been able to discern that Edmund was meant to be a Griffin Rider-but she didn't know of any that could literally see the future.

"Not really," explained Aravir, shaking her head. "Because I'm a morning star, sometimes by looking at person I can catch glimpses of different mornings in their lives. Present, past, future. Sometimes fuzzy, sometimes clear as crystal. It's an instinct. But one can tell a great deal about a person's life from the kind of mornings they've had." The star tossed a lock of white-gold hair over her shoulder. "You must remember, Lucy, that things can happen to change your future mornings. You might make a different decision somewhere along the way, or somebody else involved might. It's a tricky thing, dealing with future mornings. All the girls here, they lost their original future mornings when they stayed on with Bacchus."

"But it's a jolly lark," tittered Posy, sounding very like Bacchus on her pronunciation of 'lark'. "Hearing new girls' mornings before they change. I wonder what sort of mornings she'll see in you."

"I won't look too deeply unless you want me to," Aravir assured Lucy. "I can control it that much."

"No, I want you to," decided Lucy, hoping that perhaps Aravir would see the morning after she rescued Edmund. Then she would know everything was bound to turn out all right, so long as she kept looking for him.

"Give me your hands and let me look into your face for a moment." Lucy felt the star's hands wrap around her own, her eyes fixated on the very middle of her face. "Oh, well, that's a surprise," she said, after a bit.

"What is?"

"You marry a cripple."

"What?" Lucy furrowed her brow in confusion.

"I saw the morning after your wedding night," the star told her. "Your husband is most definitely a cripple. You were in a cabin together, and you had to help him into one of those special chairs with wheels. It looked very grand-the cabin, I mean-if that's any consolation."

Lucy was stunned. Who _was_ this crippled person she was going to marry if she didn't do anything to change it? She'd never said anything aloud about it to anyone, but after Edmund left her, she had sort of vowed to herself that she wouldn't ever marry; the throne could just go to the twenty-second in line instead of to any children of hers. But, evidently, according what Aravir saw, she didn't keep that inward promise. Probably she hadn't met him yet, but she wondered a great deal about him now.

"You'll marry a cripple," said Nightshade merrily, as if it was quite a good joke.

"Well, _you'll_ never marry _anyone_ ," Aravir reminded her sharply. "None of Bacchus's girls ever do."

"If Lucy becomes one of us, she won't either."

"The cripple could do something that changes the outcome as well," Aravir pointed out. "But Lucy won't stay, I can tell that much. Her resolve is too strong, her mornings too clear. She won't forsake her own future."

"Did you see if I got to Edmund in time?" Lucy needed to know, her voice cracking a little.

"I don't know," Aravir said apologetically. "I've never seen Edmund; I don't know what he would look like."

"Well, what about a place that might be Charn? Was that in any of my mornings?"

"There was a funeral in a place that might be Charn," she admitted solemnly. "A very sad one. The dead person was sent off in a little boat, and you stood at the shore watching."

"Was it a boy with dark hair?" Lucy swallowed hard, praying the answer was no.

"I couldn't tell."

"Oh." Lucy shivered involuntarily. What if it _was_ Edmund?

"Sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"What was her husband like?" Posy cut in.

"I told you," Aravir said, rolling her eyes, "crippled."

"No, I mean, was he at least a _handsome_ cripple? Did he seem to like her? Or did it look more like an arranged marriage?"

"What _is_ your obsession with arranged marriages?" laughed Nightshade, shaking her head at Posy.

"I was almost in one myself, is all." She smirked and shrugged her shoulders.

"I won't say anything unless Lucy herself gives me leave," Aravir told them.

"Oh, Lucy, do give permission, it'll be funny," Posy begged.

Why not? Part of her didn't want to know, still in shock over the whole thing, but at this point what difference did it make? "It's all right, you can tell us."

"I don't know how the whole matter came about, because it didn't happen in the morning," the star told them. "Could have been her choice, could have been arranged. I don't know. But, Lucy, you didn't really look any older than you do now, so I'm guessing your wedding is in the near future, not years later, when you become queen. Yes, I saw your coronation; it was during the morning hours, too. All the more reason you need to watch yourself with Bacchus, lest you forget your duty to your country. Narnia needs you. It's risky enough you leaving it to save your friend. Anyway, back to your husband; he seemed very affectionate with you."

"Ooh, _affectionate_ ," Posy teased her.

Lucy felt her cheeks going crimson and she couldn't look Posy, Nightshade, or Aravir in the eyes for several minutes.

"Posy, please!" scolded Aravir protectively. "Don't embarrass the poor child. I will send you from this pavilion if you're going to pick on her so mercilessly."

"Aw, come on, I were just have fun."

" _Was_ , Posy. _Was_ having fun! Not were. By Aslan! I wonder about you Maenads sometimes, even if you are good friends of mine!" Aravir sighed heavily.

"She's crying," said Nightshade suddenly.

Lucy wiped at her eyes, not wanting to seem babyish in front of the two wild girls and the star. She wasn't even sure why she was crying. It wasn't because she was upset that her future husband was crippled or affectionate. It wasn't even because Posy had teased her. It was...well, she couldn't understand it, exactly. Maybe it had something to do with Edmund; she wasn't over him, nor could she fathom being over him anytime soon. Or else, maybe she was just scared that Bacchus would say something that would make her stay. Both options, leaving and staying alike, seemed bleak just then.

She didn't want to be wildly over-the-top happy all the time, stuck with Bacchus for all eternity, but she didn't want to attend a funeral in Charn that might or might not be Edmund's, or get married, either. But she still knew what she would-what she _had_ to-choose. Her resolve had not lessened. Edmund needed her now, and Narnia would need her later. Whatever might come out of it, good or bad, she had to remain Lucy P. Ramandu, and refuse whatever life Bacchus offered 'Rose'.

"There, there," said Nightshade, rushing over and patting Lucy very unconsolingly on the back.

Lucy gritted her teeth. Nightshade's efforts at 'comforting her' were making her head rattle. But her tears dried up and she stopped crying, all the same.

It was then that another wild girl, this one with flaming red hair and a wide, toothy smile made up of surprisingly long front teeth that made Lucy think of a beaver, came in and announced that Bacchus had prepared a feast for them.

"I shouldn't go," said Lucy.

"No," said Aravir, "you should. He may be able to give you gifts that will help you. And I'll be there to make sure he keeps behaving himself. But you must _promise_ to listen to me no matter what, Lucy Ramandu. You must swear it. When I tell you it is time to go, you get up with me, you hear?"

"I hear," she swore. She trusted this star entirely, even though they had only just met, and knowing that she could still feel that way was more comforting than any of Nightshade's taps on her back could ever be. Deep down she was still herself, still in charge of her own destiny, and she intended to keep it that way.

The feast was made up mainly of all the beautiful grapes Lucy had seen coming in, but there were a few other things too; little oatcakes that tasted like honey, thick bread with seeds in it, any number of nuts and berries, and some kind of raw crunchy vegetable she had never had before.

The star enjoyed herself, laughing and associating with the wild girls as well as Bacchus himself, so Lucy let herself relax and do the same.

Bacchus continued to call her Rose, no matter how many times she corrected him, and she thought it would be rude to ignore him when he spoke to her, even if he called her by the wrong name, so she just let it go. She wouldn't be there much longer, anyway; it didn't matter what Bacchus called her.

After the meal was ended, Lucy was-as Aravir thought she might be-given some gifts. A handsome silver helmet and a lovely silver dress, the sleeves of which were made out of chain-mail.

"They're for your journey, wouldn't want you to get hit by a poacher's arrow or anything," Bacchus told her, smiling impishly. "But you don't need them if you stay here with us. It's safe here."

"Thank you for your kindness," Lucy said, trying on the helmet for size, contented enough to discover it fit perfectly. "But you know I have to go. For Edmund, and for Narnia."

"Yes, yes," said Bacchus in a childish voice that implied he was not listening at all to what she was saying. "Before you and Aravir leave us, you will join me in a dance."

Lucy did not feel much like dancing, but something about his offer made her want to say yes in spite of that. She allowed him to take her hand and spin her around to a pretty tune coming out of a wooden flute played by Posy, though Aravir looked wary, wiggling an eyebrow (their agreed signal for 'caution').

Towards the end of the dance, Lucy found herself thinking it wasn't a bad life these girls had here. The weather never got bad in this magical place and they could come out into the world again, young and healthy, when they liked; none of them ever got their hearts broken-not even those who were in love with Bacchus, as Nightshade was, for they knew from the very start they couldn't have him and contented themselves with simply being part of his clan; they never stopped laughing; the food was plentiful and natural; the air was clean; they were clearly allowed visitors, Aravir was proof of that.

For one split-second, Lucy imagined her friends from the Lantern Waste coming to visit her here. What a lovely time they would have...

Aravir suddenly cut into the dance and wrenched Lucy's hand away from Bacchus's. " _Now_ , Lucy. We have to leave now." She had seen a dreamy smile forming on the demistar's face and knew she couldn't risk letting her linger on whatever thoughts had caused it.

Lucy snapped back into her senses. She didn't even truly _like_ Bacchus's attention all that much. She couldn't imagine living with it day in and day out. And what good would it be to have her mortal friends visit her here? She'd only feel rotten and lonely when she out-lived them. Only she wouldn't even be allowed to be sad over it, always cheerful, always dancing. Her feet would hurt terribly!

It occurred to her suddenly that Bacchus had been whispering into her ear whenever the dance brought his head close enough to hers. He'd been whispering about how much fun she would have if she stayed, but his voice had been so chipper and melodious that she had mistaken it for part of Posy's tune and not actual words.

Aravir held onto her hand tightly, lest Bacchus try anything else. "Thank you, Bacchus. Girls." She shot them a friendly smile. "We will take our leave now." To Lucy, "Have you got everything?"

"My pack and my cloak are back at the pavilion."

"Nightshade, go and get Lucy's pack and cloak and bring them back here," ordered Aravir.

"Go on and get them," sigh-laughed Bacchus, noticing she was waiting for his nod of approval first.

Aravir stood in front of her, along with two of Bacchus's girls, so she could change into the silver dress while she was waiting.

"Marvelous!" Bacchus exclaimed when Aravir and the girls moved aside and he saw her. "Fits you like a glove. Isn't it something!"

Lucy looked down at her feet modestly. Her pack was returned to her by a breathless Nightshade, and she slipped the green velvet cloak on over her new dress. After double-checking her pack to make sure none of the wild girls had pinched Edmund's book or dagger by way of a practical joke, she was more than ready for Aravir to lead her out of the enclosure.

As the bush-door disappeared after closing behind her, Lucy looked back over her shoulder at Bacchus.

As though she was reading her mind, Aravir whispered, "Don't worry, he won't be too sad, I know him. Look, the corners of his mouth are turned up. Give him five minutes and he'll be dancing again without a second thought about you. He won't even remember you at all, much as he liked you, unless you happen to meet again. Till then, he won't be bothered."

"I don't know why I minded leaving him so much all of a sudden," Lucy confided.

"All girls who love to laugh do, it's in their blood." Aravir let go of her hand; it was safe now. "And besides Bacchus is like a needy child, you grow fond of him without realizing it until he's gone. It's perfectly natural. If you leave his presence as many times as I have, you get more than used it."

"I can't thank you enough for making sure I got out," Lucy said next, throwing her arms around Aravir and embracing her. "If you ever come to the Lantern Waste, visit my father and tell him what you did for me, but not where I've gone."

"If Aslan so wills it, you yourself may be there by the time I come that way," she replied. "You will have more mornings at the mansion in the future, if what I saw back in the pavilion isn't changed in the meantime."

"I hope so." Lucy was feeling a little homesick; she simply couldn't let herself dwell on that too much.

"It's nearly the twilit hour," Aravir noted, looking up at the pinkish-purple sky overhead. "I will have to return to the skies to be properly rested so I can shine like a second moon in the early morning."

"I've lost so much time," Lucy bemoaned. "And to think I only went with Bacchus because he broke my compass of sticks-to ask you which way was north!" She had nearly forgotten that in all the excitement and dazzling displays.

"Compass?" echoed Aravir. "I've got a compass."

"Could I borrow it?"

"You can keep it," she said firmly. "You're going to need it, especially if you mean to walk at night." From a small drawstring purse of blue velvet hanging at her side, Aravir pulled out the gleaming navigational instrument and placed it in Lucy's open palms.

It was the most elegant compass she'd ever seen. It was moon-coloured and it's crystal face was sleek, covering over N, S, E, W, all written in beautiful loopy script letters. The needle was made of a strange dark gold metal that flickered to a bluish-white hue depending on the light over-head.

"It glows like a firefly in the dark," Aravir told her. "The perfect tool for someone who doesn't want to make very many stops."

"Oh, thank you!" Lucy was breathless with relief.

"Mind the wild animals and your own body's needs, all the same," the star warned her.

"I will, and thanks awfully again!" she gasped out.

With that, Aravir nodded and, in a flash of light, soared up into the sky.

"I'm on my way again, Edmund," said Lucy to herself, holding out the gleaming compass in front of her. "Whatever's happening where you are, just hang on. I know I'll be there soon."


	29. Lucy's Wolf

"I doctor up her tea a few times and all of a sudden she thinks it's all right to just leave home without telling me!" groused Peter, pushing aside a bramble and forcing his way through a dense, woodsy path.

Behind him, panting slightly, Susan scoffed, "You've got to be joking."

Peter stopped, accidentally letting go of the bramble so that it swung backwards. It would have hit Susan in the face if she hadn't ducked in time to avoid it. (Frankly, Peter was pretty relieved she had; the switch-like impact would have made _his_ face smart, too.)

"All right," he admitted, letting the strong guilt he knew his twin already sensed in him, however much he pretended to believe he'd been in the right for argument's sake, show. "I messed up. I should never have used that herb to make her forget. It was wrong. I was just desperate and stupid, and I didn't know what else to do."

"I knew all along you shouldn't have messed with her mind," Susan said, tossing her head back rather self-righteously.

Peter turned and looked sharply at her. "My foot you did!" His facial expression hardened into a glower. "You practically _told_ me to do it."

Putting her hand to her heart, shocked, Susan exclaimed, "I did no such thing!"

"Liar. Did you honestly forget for a second there that I can read your thoughts? You _wanted_ me to do it. You were scared, too. We were in this one together." Peter couldn't believe she was throwing him to the wolves like this. All the more so since they'd talked it over at great length. Susan must have had one of those weird, selective memories; she could recite parts of at least three different dictionaries off the top of her head, but she couldn't remember _she_ had been the one to push that first herb-laced teacup towards Lucy. "And if you _did_ have any issues with what I-what _we_ -did, then you ought to have said something at the time!"

"Well," snapped Susan, "you could have waited for the search party our father was arranging instead of just going after her without the foggiest idea which way she went."

"I know where she went," Peter retorted. He figured the lousy search party would just turn over every rock in the Lantern Waste then be desolate when they couldn't find her; but to _him_ it was painfully obvious that if she was going after Edmund, not wanting to get caught, the Lantern Waste would be the _last_ place she'd stay for very long. "Remember the bill from the inn?"

"Yes," Susan huffed, making it quite clear she thought that was well beside the point, "and going _there_ to inquire of her whereabouts was a good idea. Coming out here into this beastly wood with nothing more than the vague knowledge that a strange dwarf neither the innkeeper nor his wife saw _anything_ of might have told her to go this way, on the other hand, was just plain stupid."

"No one _asked_ you to come," growled Peter, lowering his brow.

"Your face did," Susan said, rather quietly, looking away from him.

His expression softened a little. "Su, I'm sorry. I just can't sit at home and do nothing." He chuckled bitterly to himself, closing his eyes. "It's funny, before Lucy left, I didn't understand. I was scared, but I had no idea what it really felt like. Now I know why she couldn't stay put when Edmund went missing."

"He didn't go missing," said Susan pointedly, putting a reassuring hand on her twin brother's shoulder. "We both saw him leave."

"Yes, but Lucy _thinks_ he went missing, that's what she believes, whatever we have to say about it," Peter explained brokenly. "Edmund treated her like a piece of dirt, it's true, and I don't know if I can ever forgive him for that, but..." His voice trailed off, then picked up again. "If how she felt when she thought he was kidnapped was anything like how I feel now..."

"It's all right," Susan tried to assure him. "I'm sorry I blamed you. I just hate being in this wood. I-I'm frightened, that's all."

"Susan, we _have_ to find her," Peter said, his voice becoming a weak whimper. "If anything happens to her, I'll never forgive myself."

"We'll have a much better chance if we turn back," she suggested, even though she knew it wasn't what he wanted to hear. "We should have taken the search party _with_ us. We can't do this alone."

"Maybe not," Peter agreed. "But I can't turn back now. There's no telling how far ahead of us she is, or which way she's really going. If I'm even remotely close to her now, I can't possibly risk going back and finding out later... I can't, Su, I just can't. Please don't ask me to do that."

Susan swallowed hard and bit her lip. Releasing it, she said, "Peter, you're not her father. You can't do everything. I know you try to, you always have, but you simply can't."

"It doesn't matter," he insisted, his eyes growing misty; "I have to."

"Peter." Susan let go of his shoulder and took his hand. "A mere physician couldn't possibly survive this, there could be bandits or worse..."

"Susan-" he began.

"No," she cut him off. "Please let me finish." She squeezed the hand she still held. "A village doctor can't do this. But maybe, just maybe, a knight can."

"I don't understand."

"Peter, you know how to fight. I know you learned, even if your promise to me meant you could never put it into practice." Susan smiled shakily at him. "I'm letting you out of it now."

"It's a little too late," he told her doubtfully.

"Not for you it isn't," said Susan. "All this time all I've ever reminded you was how delicate your health was, how you promised me never to fight, but I never told you how strong you are. You are strong, Peter, you _are_. This is madness, but if anyone can get through it, you can."

Peter pulled her into an embrace and hugged her, holding her close for a few moments. Pulling away, he said, "Go home. I'll go on alone. I know this scares you. You've been as brave as you need to be. Go on back to the inn, stay a night, then travel to the mansion. Tell everyone what I'm doing and...just be safe there, all right?"

"Safe?" She half-smirked and elbowed him lightly in the ribs. "With a twin brother who is entirely mad, and now both a fighter _and_ a physician, wandering the forest without a guide? You've lost your mind. You're right about one thing, though. We're in this together. We messed up together and we'll fix this together as well. Besides, I took the liberty of sending a letter back home in the care of the innkeeper's stable boy. Father will know where we are; he won't have to worry we've gone missing or run away, too. Not yet, anyway. But, regardless, I'm only going back if you go with me."

"Then I guess we had better keep moving." Peter took a step forward. He didn't verbally _say_ 'thank you' to his sister for sticking by his side, but she knew by his thoughts that he meant it all the same.

Meanwhile, Lucy had come to a frozen river.

Going by the directions the dwarf had given her as well as the guidance of the morning star's compass, she knew she was meant to be on the other side, and thus had to cross over, but she wondered anxiously if the ice was strong enough to hold her or not. She was debating whether or not her silver helmet would weigh her down very much.

In the end, she took it off her head and stuffed it into the deerskin pack. And, taking a deep breath, she put a foot on the ice.

It held. She put her other foot after it, holding her breath. A faint smile came to her lips; it was still holding. The odds of making it across seemed increasingly in her favor.

That is, until she heard a queer scuffling noise on top of the frozen waterfall above her.

Curious and a little unnerved, she looked up, hoping it was just some beavers or rabbits.

It was much greater than a beaver or rabbit, however. It was massive and gray. Unmistakably, it was a wolf; a very handsome gray wolf with a serious face and dark eyes.

From the distance, Lucy couldn't tell if it was a talking wolf or not. Either way, she hoped it was friendly. All the more so as it appeared to have noticed her and was beginning to scurry down the rocks on the side of the waterfall like they were a flight of stairs.

She knew she ought to move faster, try to beat it across to the other side, but she was still scared of breaking the ice if she ran on it, fairly certain it was thinner in some places than others, and furthermore, she was barely to the middle of the river as of yet.

Too far in to turn back, but not close enough to the end that she could scramble to it if danger struck.

Suddenly the wolf was leaping down in front of her, all four paws spread out on the ice, an angry look in its narrowed eyes, growling.

A little cry escaped her and she jumped back, luckily onto a part of the river she had already been on and knew was thick enough to support her.

The wolf was, in fact, none other than Edmund Maugrim using the green ring, but Lucy had no way of knowing that. Something told her it wasn't a dumb beast, that it _could_ talk, only it didn't seem to feel like having a conversation at the moment; it merely kept on growling.

What he was trying to do was get her back to the other side of the river. Sure, it wasn't much, but it was still one river further away from Charn than she would be if he didn't frighten her into retreating.

Honestly, he was rather in shock that she had come after him after what he'd done to her. That had been the whole _point_. What was _wrong_ with this girl? What else could he have possibly done to make her hate him and stay at the mansion where she'd be safe? He had cheated on her, insulted her, and _left_ her! What did more did it _take_?

It was lucky that Edmund had turned around and gone a short ways in the opposite direction from Charn. If he hadn't, he might have not learned she wasn't at home where she belonged in time.

The reason he had done so was because, as a wolf, his nose was more sensitive and the wind blowing in his direction from behind had picked up the smell of a faun. Wondering if it was Tumnus, he had decided to rush back through the forest unobserved and see for himself. He hoped it wasn't, that it was just some random, unknown faun out for a pleasure walk in the evening through predator-infested trees despite the cold weather (as unlikely as that seemed), wanting his former mentor to be safe along with Eustace and Ammi (because they weren't half-goat their scent wasn't as strong and hadn't reached him, so he had no reason to think _they_ were in the forest following him back to Charn, too). But if it _was_ indeed Tumnus, he wanted to demand of him if he'd stolen the yellow ring (Edmund knew _one_ of his fellow accomplices had to of) instead of pulling away from the witch like their plan called for. He was sure that as a wolf he was swift enough to make up for any lost miles and get back on the right path before Jadis took too much notice, so he set off.

But whether by some conflicting wind coming from the wrong direction or else some force pulling him a different way, or perhaps the green ring itself resisting being dragged away from the paths to Charn this far on in the mission, Edmund lost the scent and found himself at a halfway, neither here nor there, point on top of a waterfall.

He had just been about to give up looking for Tumnus, figuring the faun would have to find _him_ instead, when an almost physically painful feeling had come over him. His whole wolf-body shook violently.

There was no doubt about a magical force being involved _this_ time; the ring was repelling him against something.

Something below the frozen waterfall.

He'd looked down, only to feel his heart stop in his chest when he saw her; Lucy P. Ramandu, in the flesh, wearing the green cloak he bought for her, crossing the frozen river, clearly heading in the same direction as he was meant to be.

The ring's power tugged at him slightly, as if warning him to keep away from her, but it was on his claw now and in his current form such a small magical artifact couldn't have brought him to any more grief than a bad hangnail or, at the most, a sore paw.

Edmund knew that if he had been in his true human form Jadis would have found a way to make certain he didn't meet up with Lucy at the bottom of the river. As it was, since she wasn't likely to recognize him, this still qualified as part of the mission. This was part of the witch's little game, her sick entertainment. Edmund wasn't officially in trouble until the final round when it became clear he'd botched everything up deliberately to make the witch lose.

All he could think of was making sure Lucy got back to the other side of the river. Once she did, he would figure out how to make her stay there-or, better yet, go home.

"Why are you so angry?" asked Lucy with quivering lips. She would have to make the wolf speak to her. She couldn't go back, and she couldn't move forward with the wolf baring his teeth at her like that, so she saw no other option.

"Turn back," snarled Wolf-Edmund, ignoring her question, "if you want to live."

"I didn't get this far to do that," Lucy told him, trembling but taking a step forward nonetheless.

He growled again.

Now it might seem odd that Lucy couldn't at least recognize Edmund's voice coming out of the furious gray wolf, but when properly considered, it's actually quite understandable. Edmund himself had figured she would know him immediately if he spoke with a Narnian accent, and so he took great care not to use the very accent it had taken him countless hours of practice to master initially before it became natural. Luckily for him, Narnian words spoken with a Charnian edge, suited the gruff voice of a talking wolf remarkably well. He sounded nothing like the Edmund Maugrim who had stayed at the Ramandus' mansion.

Swallowing hard, her heart thumping madly in her chest, Lucy took another step forward.

The wolf snapped his teeth at her. "Stop it!"

Clearly the wolf was not going to let her pass, so she did the only thing she could think of. She went further down the river, instead of sticking close to the waterfall as she originally planned, in a feeble attempt to simply go _around_ the wolf.

But he kept up with her. Whichever way she went, he hastily dashed out in front. Twice, his claws scrapped the ice up as he skidded to a stop. For Lucy, it was even more dangerous, as she didn't have padded paws like the wolf's. She fell back on her bottom after finally almost getting to the other side.

This ended up confirming what she suspected from the start: the wolf, however threatening he _acted_ , was not going to hurt her. If he truly wanted to, he could have pounced long before, all the more so as she was struggling to get back onto her feet on the slippery surface and was in no position to fight him off.

As soon as she was able, Lucy dragged her boots across the ice, still meaning to get passed that wolf.

Edmund had to give her points for persistence. He made himself growl again, though he wasn't sure it would do any real good.

It didn't. Lucy realized she was now only one good jump away from the other side if she leapt diagonally, avoiding the wolf.

Of course she was down-right mad to try it, but Edmund realized-too late-that she was going to anyway.

She's completely lost it, Edmund thought. Why, she's got about as much chance of making that jump as of being the next bloody queen of Narnia! (Oh, wait a minute...that's right, she is...)

She made it. Well, kind of. Her whole upper body was on the other side of the river, but her knees had landed on the ice and were probably smarting like anything under that queer silver dress she was wearing.

"Idiot," Wolf-Edmund grunted.

Lucy groaned and blinked at him, dragging her knees and feet from the ice and onto the snowy shoreline with the rest of her body.

"What the devil were you trying to do? Break a blasted shin-bone?"

"You wouldn't let me get by any other way," she said meekly.

"What was so important about crossing this river?" he snarled.

If Lucy were a different sort of girl, more like her sister, more precocious, she might have retorted, "What was so important about _preventing_ me from crossing this river?" but as she was herself and no other, she replied honestly with no clever remarks. "I'm searching for a friend of mine. He was stolen by a witch on a sledge. His name's Edmund Maugrim; I think he's in a country called Charn."

On a whim, Wolf-Edmund blurted, "Edmund Maugrim?" as if stunned.

"You know him?" Lucy asked, her eyes shinning.

"I _did_ ," he said, hating to put out all the lights in her hopeful expression but knowing he must for the sake of saving her.

"Did?" repeated Lucy, the colour temporarily draining from her cheeks and lips.

"He's dead," he lied.

Lucy squinted at the wolf. "I don't believe you." The colour suddenly returned to her face in one semi-furious flush.

Wolf-Edmund cursed under his breath. "All right, so maybe he's not actually dead. But trust me, I can tell you, with complete honestly, that he might as well be. You can't do anything for him, just go home."

"How do you know so much?" Lucy asked, staring into the wolf's eyes as if looking for somebody else inside of him. "Who are you _really_?"

"Nobody," he grunted. "Just go home."

Lucy continued looking intently at the now squirming, impatient wolf. She could have sworn she knew him from somewhere. "Listen," she said at last, "I'm going to find him whether you tell me who you are or not." And, with that, she scooped up her pack (it had landed on the ground beside her elbow when she jumped across) and resumed walking.

Wolf-Edmund muttered something about her being a pain in his backside and trudged along after her begrudgingly.

"Lovely day," said Lucy by way of making conversation. She didn't want the sullen wolf to think she was ignoring him, but he was so grumpy she didn't quite know what else to say to him.

"It's bloody freezing," he snap-growled, glaring at her. "Shut up."

Lucy sighed.

They appeared to be climbing up to higher grounds now. The land was getting hilly, and even colder than before.

Lucy wondered if they were getting any closer to the west-facing sea, and how she would go about getting a sailing vessel when she got there. She also wondered if the angry-faced wolf meant to sail with her as well or if it would run off before that.

Deep down, she hoped the wolf would stay. She couldn't explain it, but there was something about being with him that made her feel that everything in the world was right again. Such a feeling made no sense, of course, as his demeanor gave her no reason to become attached to him, yet she had unexplainable strong emotions of like-even love-for the unfriendly gray-furred creature. It somehow didn't matter that he, too, had lied to her about Edmund; this wolf was not at all like the dreadful dwarf who'd given her directions for getting to Charn, even if their accents _were_ vaguely similar at times.

Edmund was trying desperately to come up with ways for impeding the remainder of Lucy's journey to Charn without it being obvious to Jadis and her forces of magic. The simplest solution would be to tell Lucy who he was and what was really going on, but he knew Jadis wouldn't allow that. Something would stop him, he was certain of it, and he might, in trying, lose the only way of protecting Lucy he currently had, however feeble it was.

Jadis would find a way to pull him away from the demistar the second she learned who he was. This had never happened before, and as of right now it was probably an amusing novelty, an intriguing grand finale, but if that changed, the witch could change things and keep them apart until Lucy arrived in Charn.

He was sorry he hadn't met up with Tumnus first, if it really had been Tumnus he'd smelled. Perhaps, between the two of them, they could have thought of a subtle way to make Lucy turn back.

Suddenly a scream of sickly surprise came out of Lucy, and Wolf-Edmund realized she was falling down the opposite side of the hill, which had given way in a landslide that had missed the ground he was standing on by a hair of an inch.

He tried to grab onto the back of her cloak with his teeth and pull her up, but it all happened so quickly that he missed, catching nothing but cold air in his teeth, Lucy falling below.

Anxious to see if she was all right, he searched frantically for a path leading down. For a human, there were none at all, save the way Lucy had gone (namely falling); for a wolf, there were a few, but unfortunately even the nearest one would take him out of sight of the place Lucy had landed for several minutes.

Lucy's world was black for a second before she sat up in a snowbank and it all turned white again.

A flash of silver told her that her helmet had tumbled out of her pack. Everything else, however, seemed in place. She had no broken bones and only a few bruises worth mentioning. There was a very small cut just above her left eyebrow from which a little stream of blood trickled, but it clotted speedily.

No sooner had she scrambled to her feet and gone to retrieve her helmet than there came the sight of flashing steel, and a voice said, "This is real silver. I'll be taking it."

Craning her sore neck upwards, Lucy caught sight of a fierce-looking middle-aged man holding a long hunting knife pointed directly at her.

Being ambushed by a good-sized man with a big knife is enough to rattle anyone's nerves, but that wasn't what made Lucy gape at him in awe.

He looked _very_ like Edmund, save for the fact that he was quite a bit older. His eyes, his dark hair, even his _nose_ , were all exactly like Edmund's.

The character in his face was vastly different, though, Lucy couldn't help noticing; much nastier, less playful.

The man took the silver helmet under one arm, still pointing the knife at her. "As for you, I'll take you back to my camp for now."

"No, sir," said Lucy, shaking her head. "I-"

The man had stuffed the helmet (and her deerskin pack, which he'd snatched out of her hands) into a makeshift bundle on his back and was now grabbing at her arm with his free hand, latching on and pulling her to him.

"Get your hands off me!" demanded Lucy.

"Start walking," he hissed, pressing the knife lightly against her chest.

He forced her onward until they came to a place where a tent made up of materials that were probably grand once upon a time all patched together and mismatched iron poles had been set up.

"Sit," he ordered, spinning her out of his grasp and throwing her onto the ground beside what looked like a poorly dug-out fire-pit.

She sat down on a log near the place where he had dropped her and shivered violently, pulling her green cloak as tightly around herself as she could. "What do you want with me?"

"I don't know yet." The man shrugged his shoulders. "Nothing now. Later, it depends how I'm feeling." Then, "As for your helmet, I'm going to find a place to sell it, obviously. I can use a few extra coins here and there. Now no more talking unless I ask you a question, your voice is bothering me."

Lucy scowled hatefully at him.

After a bit, he sat down on a log on the other side of the pit and started eating some of the food out of her pack. He offered it to her as well, but she only glowered and refused to take it; it was _hers_ anyway. He seemed to take little to no notice of the leather book because it was old and not worth much, but the gold hilt of the dagger caught his attention, and Lucy watched with blood-shot eyes as he took it out and laid it next to the helmet greedily.

He looked at her knees, noticing the silver fabric sticking out from under the cloak. "Is that real silver thread in your dress?"

Lucy lifted up her chin defiantly and turned her head.

"I asked you a question."

"I heard you," she said, blinking blandly.

"Answer me or I'll strike you across the face so hard your nose will bleed."

"Yes," she muttered angrily to the still unlit fire-pit. "It's real silver, best as I know."

"Then take it off and give it here," he commanded, standing up with his hand outstretched.

Lucy's breath caught in her throat. "No!"

"Do as I say at once or I swear you will regret it."

"I'll freeze to death!" she cried, shooting him a pleading expression. "Surely you have some pity."

"Pity is something I can do without," the man told her, his voice almost a laugh now but not a nice one in the least. "But you can keep the cloak; looks like it's been dragged around too much to sell. And if your underclothes are too thin for this weather, I'll give you something of mine to wear over them."

"I have clothing in my pack," Lucy said, not wanting anything belonging to this man on her.

"It's _my_ pack now," said the man pointedly.

"You've _got_ it," she stated, "but that doesn't make it yours."

"Shut up and give me the dress."

"It won't fit you right," she sneered, making an uncharacteristic attempt at sarcasm.

He picked up the knife again and lifted it like he intended to throw it at her chest.

Trembling, she stood up and unlaced and unbuttoned the silver dress under the cloak, pulling it down at her feet. The chain-mail sleeves jingled. Stepping out of the garment, she handed it over.

He tossed her a purple tunic and a pair of woolen tights from her pack. Even though she shifted away from him and continued to keep the cloak over herself at all times, Lucy had the uncomfortable feeling that his eyes remained unwaveringly on her as she changed.

Lucy was surprised by how deeply she could hate a person (she had never really believed she had it in her), but even more surprised by how suddenly such hatred could cool off. When he stopped speaking, demanding things and threatening her, keeping more to himself, she found him harder to loathe.

Unlike her feelings for the wolf, Lucy understood plainly why-when she let herself forget he had kidnapped her and dragged her to this camp-she almost liked this horrible man; it was simply because his mannerisms (with the exception of his voice) were identical to Edmund's.

But, at the same time, the very fact that made him more appealing to her also made him more frightening. It was rather terrifying to see a distinctive similarity between a person one loved and a cruel, greedy robber.

She tried to talk to him, in spite of his telling her not to, thinking that she might be able to get something-anything-decent out of him. She even asked if he'd had a good childhood (she thought getting him to speak about loving parents or siblings might soften him up a bit), which unfortunately turned out to be entirely the wrong thing to ask.

He said that, no, his childhood had been beyond rotten and thanks very much for bringing it up. Then he told her to shut up again.

When he pulled out a bottle of wine, tore off the cork with his teeth, and started drinking, Lucy grimaced.

On the one hand, if he drank himself to sleep, she might be able to retrieve her pack and get away before he woke. Only, on the other, he might be a nasty drunk. Lucy had heard-in passing-of people that became violent and unpleasant when they drank too much.

She'd seen Peter accidentally drink a little more than was good for him once shortly before he became a physician, but all he'd done was laugh hysterically for no reason, pass out, and then wake up moaning about his head the next day (Susan had been furious to have to share his hangover with him when she hadn't been the one to drink so much). That didn't give Lucy a whole lot of experience to go on.

When about a quarter of the wine bottle was emptied, the man stood up and finally lit the fire in the pit with a match and some dry wood.

Lucy realized her teeth were chattering.

"I hate that sound," he slurred. Oddly enough, he hadn't sounded nasty when he said that, only as if he were stating a fact. He didn't seem to like the cold or its effects on the human body much, yet he was out here in the forest, instead of in a respectable home someplace warm. Truly, it was a mystery.

After warming his hands over the fire, he went into the tent and came back out a second later with a copper tea-kettle in his hands. Using a propped-up stick, he boiled some water. When he was done mixing ingredients into a blue china cup with a chip on one side, he poured in the water.

Lucy listened to the clinking of an old tarnished silver spoon banging around the cup as he stirred. Then she felt something warm being shoved into her hands so roughly that if she hadn't reacted in time it would have spilled into her lap.

"That'll warm you," he said gruffly.

Lucy mumbled a thank you but didn't drink it, dumping it out, a little bit at a time, on the snow behind herself whenever he had his eyes downcast near the fire instead of focused on her. She knew from the smell, thanks to Edmund, that it was laced with Toffee-Leaves.

Things were going about as well as they could under the circumstances until the wine bottle was almost completely empty and the man started getting a look on his face that made Lucy feel creepy. She wouldn't have minded so much if he didn't keep glancing at her the way he was, but he did, and she shivered in spite of the fact that, between the cloak and the fire, she was no longer cold.

It was worse when he got up, walked around the fire, and sat beside her. No matter how many times she scooted away from him, he always closed the gap within a manner of seconds.

It was growing darker and Lucy's chances of being rescued seemed to be dimming with the fading daylight.

Surely the wolf would find her, she had been thinking. But he had not come. He had not come and it was getting dark and she was alone with this strange man and she wanted so badly for this to be over; for herself and Edmund to be back safe at the mansion. She wanted her brother and sister and her father. What would she do if the wolf didn't come? If he had abandoned her when she fell?

The man's arm slipped around her and she lurched forward, vomiting on the ground directly in front of them.

When she pulled her head back up, tears stinging her eyes and running down her face, the man showed her a dagger of his own with a pointed iron hilt. "You see this?"

She nodded shakily.

"It's not as nice as the one I stole from you," he whispered, "but I was trained to use it well. You asked about my childhood; well, I'll tell you this: I picked up a lot of skills from it. Do you want to know what one of them is?" He leaned his face closer to hers. "If I wanted to, I could jab this dagger into a little space near your spine and paralyze you so quickly you would barely even feel it."

A little squeak of terror passed her lips and more tears came.

"I won't do it, though, if you please me." He put the dagger down in a spot close enough for him to reach but too far for Lucy, then lifted his fingers to her cheek and started running them up and down the side of her face.

On furious impulse, shaking all over, she spat at his right eye. "Leave me alone!"

Instead of going for the dagger like she thought, which might have given her a second to try and get away, he grabbed one of her arms so tightly that she lost most of the feeling in it and used the advantage of his bigger size and heavier weight to push her backwards and pull himself on top of her.

Lucy squirmed and kept begging him to let her up.

He tried to kiss her on the mouth, but she twisted her face so his lips collided with the middle of her chin instead. Then, when he still wouldn't get off her, no matter how hard she pleaded, she kneed him in-between the legs.

Groaning in pain, he let up a bit and she managed to roll away.

Before she could stand up properly, however, he came staggering after her and pushed her back down, barking something about 'teaching her a lesson she wouldn't forget'.

He was on top of her again, tugging at her clothing and running his hands along her waist and thighs. She was crying so hard she thought she would vomit again.

Then, out of a nearby bush, there came what looked to Lucy like a big gray blur, that charged the man, knocking him off of her.

It was the wolf- _her_ wolf! Her same dear sullen traveling companion from earlier that day. She was so happy to see him; a sob escaped from her.

The sob only made the wolf more dangerously angry than he already was. Edmund didn't know it was a sob of joy at seeing him coming back for her; he thought, understandably, that she was still crying from what the despicable creep (who he knew at once for his father although they'd never met before) had been trying to do to her.

His paws on his father's chest, Wolf-Edmund hiss-growled, "If you ever so much as _think_ about putting your filthy hands on her again, I'll kill you."

As the wolf had already made a slash with his claws across his lower chest and part of his waist, causing dark blood to soak through his clothing, the man didn't doubt the truth of those words.

" _Nobody_ hurts her," he added vehemently.

"Nobody except Jadis, right?" whispered the man, speaking very softly so that only the wolf on top of him could hear-not Lucy.

Wolf-Edmund snarled, pained.

"I know what you are," the man told him, still in that barely audible whisper, slurring minimally. "And what the girl is, too. I was just like you once; I was a Traitor, too. Jadis took everything from me. She'll destroy you, just like she did me. You may be all honourable intentions now, but give it until she takes things too far. And she _will_ too; she's a witch, after all. Take a good look at me, whatever your name is, you're peeking at your own future. Well, this or death."

The wolf shook, lowering his open mouth as if he was going to bite the man's face right off. Then appearing to change his mind, he repeated, " _Nobody_ hurts her."

"Good luck with that," he slurred.

Catching his father's eyes and staring him down, he said, "Jadis can't have her."

"You're a bloody fool," snorted the man.

"And you'll be a _dead_ fool if you so much as _breathe_ near my demistar again." He removed his paws from his father's chest and ran over to Lucy.

She was sitting with her knees pulled to her chest by the fire-pit.

"I'm so sorry," whispered Wolf-Edmund, pressing his head against her upper arm. "I'm so sorry." Everything bad that had happened to her was his fault; he felt it keenly now.

Lucy threw her arms around her wolf's neck, weeping. "You came back for me." She couldn't guess what the wolf could possibly be apologizing for, but she was too shaken up to ask. She wanted nothing more than to cling to the only friend she seemed to have at the moment, this dear wolf, and never let go.

"He'll never bother you again, Lucy," Wolf-Edmund whispered, letting her caress his fur. "I promise."

"How do you know my name?" She had felt instinctively from the first that he knew it, but since she'd never told him what it was, she couldn't fathom how he _could_.

"I..."

"I know who you are now!" exclaimed Lucy, clinging to him all the more tightly. "I've just figured it out."

"You...you have?" His breath caught in his throat.

"Yes! You're the boy I saved from the those hunters as a child. You're not really a wolf, you're a boy under an enchantment." She looked into his eyes sadly. "I'm sorry you're still under it after all these years." She wished she could see him as a human, but she was no longer a child, her limited ability to see through enchantments was in the past.

"Yeah," he said weakly. "That's who I am."

Because it was too dark to travel, Wolf-Edmund suggested Lucy get some sleep.

"What if he..." She'd looked nervously over her shoulder at the man who was, instead of binding up his wounds more securely like a sensible person, chewing Toffee-Leaves to dull the pain.

"I told you, he won't bother you." She had then felt the wolf nudge her arm lovingly. "Rest for a bit. I'll stay with you and make sure he doesn't come near."

"All night?" whispered Lucy in a small, quivering voice.

"All night," he promised.

And so, finding a warm place next to the fire, using the hood of her cloak as a pillow, Lucy laid down her head and closed her eyes.

As soon as he was sure she was really asleep, Edmund fumbled with the green ring on his claw and reverted back to his true form as he sat guarding Lucy.

His feet were still solid gold, which the man noticed at once. "Is that real gold?" he asked, coming over.

"Why?" sneered Edmund, speaking very softly so as not to wake Lucy. "You want to cut them off with an ax and sell them?"

"Don't be disgusting," the man snapped, albeit quietly.

"Look who's talking." Edmund shook his head bitterly.

Studying the young traitor's face in the flickering light of the fire, the man began to wonder. "Are you mine?" The resemblance was unmistakable.

Edmund closed his eyes. "Don't keep on jawing, you'll wake her." Opening them again, he laid down and put his arm around Lucy's waist protectively.

"What if she sees you?" the man whispered.

"She _won't_ ," he hissed. "I've got the green ring in my hand. I'll slip it on and change back before she wakes up. Now be quiet."

"Here." The man dropped a brownish-green woolen blanket over them both. "I don't want to have to hear you two shivering all damn night." With that, he hobbled into his tent.

In her sleep, Lucy snuggled up close to Edmund, and he held onto her all night.


	30. The Advice

Lucy awoke, just as the dawn was breaking, from a dream (or what she _believed_ to be a dream) that Edmund had been holding her.

What frightened her, however, was that, when she sat up and looked round, she saw that she was alone. The wolf was nowhere to be found, and the man who had attacked her last night was sitting by the fire-pit rubbing his temples as if he had a headache. Lucy wished him a migraine.

She was glad the man wasn't any closer, the ashy, ember-spotted pit between herself and him, but she was horrified that the wolf would just leave her like that. He'd promised- _promised_ -to stay with her all night, and she had believed him.

Now she was alone.

This was too much. Was there nobody she loved who wouldn't betray her? Her former betrothed, her own brother, and now her enchanted wolf friend, had all broken her heart in one way or another.

Her back ached from sleeping on the hard ground, as well as from the fall she'd taken yesterday, and her arm (the one the man had grabbed too hard when he was trying to force her down) was sore this morning too. In short, she was in too much pain, physically and emotionally, to deal with being abandoned.

Tears sprung up in her eyes and she started crying into the back of one of her wrists. She knew she was blubbing more loudly than she intended by the fact that the man lifted up his apparently throbbing head around the time a fifth sob escaped her.

"I wasn't anywhere _near_ her, I swear!" he said suddenly, his blood-shot eyes widening. "She just sat up and started bawling her head off."

Lucy stopped crying and looked over her shoulder to see who the man was speaking to.

Her wolf stood there, a half-snarl on his face.

A smile broke through the light remainder of her tears. "Where have you been?"

"I left you for barely three minutes to relieve myself in the bushes," Wolf-Edmund told her, raising his furry brow slightly. "You were fine when I left." She had been slumbering so peacefully, looking so impossibly sweet in spite of everything she went through the day before, that he'd hated having to let go of her and change back into a wolf.

Lucy sniffle-laughed at her own stupidity. She couldn't believe she had been so quick to decide he'd left her to fend for herself. Of course the poor wolf had to _go_ sometime, just like anybody else! _What's the matter with me?_ she thought.

"You're trembling," Wolf-Edmund noted.

"I thought you..." Her voice trailed off. She did not see how she could possibly admit now that she thought he'd heartlessly deserted her. "But I was wrong," she amended shakily. "So it doesn't matter."

"Before we go," said Wolf-Edmund, smirking over at his father, "perhaps you would like to say something."

"Yeah," snorted the man, lifting his chin in Lucy's direction. "You look ugly when you cry."

The wolf gave the faintest hint of a low, threatening growl, his dark eyes flashing with anger and limited patience.

"I mean," sighed the man, giving in, "I'm sorry for the offense to your honour last night, and I'm sorry I stole from you."

Lucy frowned; she was all for forgiveness under most circumstances, but he honestly didn't _sound_ sorry in the least. Really, he sounded like nothing more than a sulky child being forced to recite a poetry lesson.

" _And_?" Wolf-Edmund prompted, beating his right front paw on the snowy ground.

"And I'll return all of your things," he moaned, gritting his teeth and rubbing his palm against his forehead in a circular motion.

"And...?" Wolf-Edmund said again.

"What the bloody else do you want from me?" snapped the man, pouting.

"Nothing." One of the wolf's shoulder blades went up in a sort of shrug. "I was just waiting to see what else you offered."

The man made a face at him. "Brat."

"Creep," Wolf-Edmund shot back.

"Bastard," the man dealt out.

"Naturally," said the wolf with a cool, cocky swish of his tail, the fur on it all standing up on end testily. "And who's fault is that?"

Lucy crinkled her brow; she wasn't following this conversation, it was too difficult.

Grunting, the man stood up, put the silver helmet and the dagger with Aslan's golden head depicted on it back into Lucy's deerskin pack, approaching her and the wolf with it in hand.

The muffled sound of jingling chain-mail told Lucy the silver dress was in there, too.

"Put it down at her feet," the wolf instructed tersely before the man could get very close.

Frowning, he complied with this, placing the pack down on the ground a half-foot or so away from where Lucy stood.

"Now step ten paces back, and if you so much as cross the gap by a hair I'll tear you to pieces."

"I could fight you for her," the man pointed out, nonetheless backing off ten paces as ordered. "I'm handy with a dagger."

"You've got a hangover and I have sharp teeth and claws in this form," snorted Wolf-Edmund. "Who would you bet on coming out of it alive?"

"Very well." The man shrugged. "There'll be other women. And other demistars. Not to mention other peoples' gold and silver."

Edmund felt sick to his stomach at the words 'other demistars', for a terrible thought that hadn't occurred to him up till that moment struck his mind with painful intensity. Lucy was the first demistar he'd ever tried to save, the first he had ever traveled alongside at _all_. Was it possible that some of the other demistars he betrayed to Jadis had been hurt by his father on the way? Now, it was very possible that they hadn't, as this camp, however bad the smell was at times, didn't seem too old. His father couldn't have been in that place for too long. But, still, 'other demistars'; there was no telling which half-blood girls had been prey to his father before turning up in Charn. It needn't have necessarily been in this _exact_ location for it to have happened.

In regards to Lucy, though it barely seemed possible, as his heart was already brimming over with protectiveness and love for her, the horrid thought of what might have come before her made her safety now all the more precious to him. For the first time Edmund truly understood how Tumnus felt about keeping him safe to atone for the mistake they-all three of them-acted as though never happened. Saving him wouldn't have made his father a decent person, and saving Lucy wouldn't bring the other half-blood star girls back, but it was the beginning of things being set right.

Maybe that was how it all started. It had been Edmund's experience that whenever things went wrong (as they had pretty much his whole life) they kept on going wrong for a while; but, he wondered, if they could only start going right, would they keep going right for a while as well?

"Wolf-boy," said the man after a pause, while Lucy was busy rummaging through her returned pack, making sure everything was there (she was glad to see that the compass Aravir gave her was securely in one of her bigger tunic pockets and had not been found by the robber to begin with); "I would speak with you in private."

"Only if you leave your all your weapons here, with Lucy." Edmund was caught between wanting to take nothing-not even words-from his good for nothing, so-called father and being curious as to what the demented man could dream of saying to him now, but he was not so dense as to risk getting himself stabbed or leaving Lucy without amble means of defending herself if the worst should happen.

"She'll only take the best of them for herself and return the rusty, useless ones," he suspected.

"I will not!" cried Lucy indignantly. "I'm not a thief like you!"

"And if she _did_ ," Wolf-Edmund snarled, "it would only serve you right." His wolf-lips curled challengingly "The ball's in your court now. How badly do you want to speak to me alone?"

Within the next two minutes, Lucy had endless spears, swords, and daggers, as well as a large Calormene blade almost as big as little Gael back home, all laid down by her feet.

"I know every one of them by heart," the man reminded her gruffly over his shoulder, walking off with her wolf.

"I'm sure you do," said Lucy icily. Inwardly, she was half-panicked. She wished the wolf would refuse to speak with him alone.

The horrible man could _keep_ all of his weapons if only he would spare her the sight of her wolf being led off by someone as untrustworthy as himself into unknown thickets. If he found some way to harm her wolf, she felt keenly it would kill her inside.

Edmund, on the other hand, was now growing fairly sure his father had no real intentions of physically hurting him. Not at this time, anyway.

Before the man spoke, he spat out a little Toffee-Leaf on the ground and picked at his teeth with a pinky-nail. "Do you chew Toffee-Leaves?"

"I used to," he admitted distantly. "I've given it up. Is that what you dragged me over here to ask?"

"No," said the man, shaking his head. "I was just wondering, you being my son and all. I figured it had to be true when you didn't answer me last night. If you weren't mine, if you had even the slightest doubt, you would have said no, not changed the subject to end the conversation."

Edmund tensed up; because, much as he hated to admit it, his father was right about that. And he could only guess that, in his place, his father would have done the same thing. How else could he come to that conclusion?

"Which one was your mother?"

"Does it matter?" grunted Wolf-Edmund, willing himself not to show weakness in front of his father.

"You don't know, do you?"

"I was very little when she left me," he said slowly. "How would I know her name?" He only knew his aunt and uncle's (her sister-in-law and brother) names because of Eustace, though he had been even younger.

"We have that in common as well. Chances are I never learned it, either."

"I remember _her_ , though, name or no name." He bared his teeth. He didn't like defending his mother, for he was never done being angry with her, but compared to his father she was almost a saint. "You don't. That's the difference."

"Well, whoever she was, I think it's safe to say you didn't take after her much."

"You have no right, after over seventeen years of ignorance to my existence," Wolf-Edmund managed, "to make me listen to this jaw."

"That little girl waiting with my weapons," said the man pointedly; "one you knocked me off of last night. You're in love with her, aren't you?"

"What was your first clue?" he replied sarcastically.

"There's no need to be smart with me, boy." The man took a step towards the edge of the thicket as if pantomiming leaving. "If you don't want me to tell you something that might take her out of the witch's grasp, then by all means go back and tell her to return my weapons to me. You can go to Charn and watch her die for all I care. I just happen to know from personal experience that it won't be much fun."

"You told me I was a bloody fool for trying to save her," he pointed out distrustfully. "You made it more than clear Jadis would win."

"You _are_ a bloody fool, and she probably _will_ win. And that's the truth of the matter. What does that have to do it? If you're stupid enough to try anyway, I mean."

"What do you suggest?"

"Do you know, boy, _why_ Jadis wants demistars?"

Wolf-Edmund tossed back his head. "Of course. She wants power from them. They're half-star, half-mortal; their blood is special."

"Have you ever been in the room with Jadis at the end of a mission?"

Wolf-Edmund shuddered involuntarily. "No." Thank Aslan. After seeing Ammi's reaction to witnessing a half-star being killed, he knew more than ever he couldn't bear the sight.

"If I know Jadis, she'll make you watch this one." If Edmund didn't know any better, he could have almost thought there was the faintest, barely noteworthy, hum of sympathetic pity in his father's voice when he said that.

"She isn't going to lay a finger on her," said Wolf-Edmund vehemently.

"Oh, you're no threat to her."

"Then I don't see the point-" he began.

The man cut him off. "But your blood is."

"How do you mean?" The wolf lowered his body close to the ground, as if ready to pounce on something. Really, he was just catching his breath, sensing something important was finally going to come out of this endless conversation.

"When I was about eleven years old," said the man, sounding different-almost, for a brief moment, like another person entirely, "the witch made me watch. I happened to touch the current half-blood girl's arm in passing when she came into the castle looking for me. Jadis mistook it for tenderness, thought I was becoming too soft or something, and she had her dwarf servant Ginarrbrick drag me in."

"Why are you telling me this?" His stomach hurt. In picturing this story, he kept seeing a younger version of himself in his mind's eye and he couldn't take it anymore.

"Ginarrbrick, for some reason, choose to hold me really close to the stone table. His grip on my arms was too tight and I tried to shrug him off. When I did, my nose hit the side of the table and started to bleed." Here the man smirked knowingly. "That was when I suspected something... _peculiar_... You see, Jadis went mad with rage, nothing new in that-but there was also _fear_ ; she was panicking. She thought my blood was going to land on the table."

Wolf-Edmund's eyes darted both ways then focused back on his father. "I don't follow you."

"Idiot! Don't you get it? Something about my blood landing on the table would have ruined everything. The blood of a half-star spilling out on the table gives the witch power. But what of Traitor blood? What would happen if a traitor who worked for her bled on the table at the same moment as her latest victim was bound on it?"

"I don't know."

"Exactly. No one does." He pointed a finger down at the wolf as if he intended to tap him on the nose, but he made no contact. "Jadis always made sure of that. My blood never touched it. Neither did that of any other traitor." He crouched down so that his head was level with Wolf-Edmund's. "You want to save your pathetic little sweetheart? Then go try it. No one's stopping you. But if you're going to die, do it on the stone table."

After that, there was nothing more to be said on either side, so rather than stand around feeling awkward, they nodded grimly at each other and walked out of the thicket.

Lucy smiled when she saw her wolf, sound and well as ever, brought to no grief or harm, emerge just behind the man.

"I've done as you asked," he said, looking at the pile of weapons at Lucy's feet. "Give back what is mine."

Much as she doubted how much of it wasn't really stolen from others, Lucy was more than willing to give it all back. She had Edmund's beautiful dagger, which in her eyes was worth a million of these ugly weapons, back in her possession, and the wolf's strong jaw and long, sharp claws to protect her; what else did she need?

"Wolf-boy," said the man, lifting his eyebrows at Wolf-Edmund. "Remember what I told you about the blood."

"I will." Wolf-Edmund nodded.

"What's he talking about?" asked Lucy.

"Nothing," her wolf whispered to her shortly, not because he was cross but because he couldn't think of a more convincing lie in time. "Let's leave this place."

Sometime in mid-afternoon, Tumnus, Eustace, and Ammi stumbled upon Edmund's father's camp.

While still at fair distance, Tumnus recognized the hunched-over man chewing Toffee-Leaves like a cow working tirelessly on its cud, simply by the contour of his head and neck, combined with his distinctive dark hair. The fellow was too old for Edmund (he was also a bit bulkier than his son) so the faun knew at once who he had to be. He was reminded at that same moment of one reason he had been pleased when Edmund Maugrim gave up chewing Toffee-Leaves; it was proof that things truly _could_ be different with him.

"Eustace," said Tumnus, glancing over at Ammi, "this man is a mite too fond of women's company, stand in front of her."

Ammi arched an eyebrow. "Seriously?" She grasped the side of Eustace's doublet sleeve and pushed him forward. " _This_ is what you expect to protect me?"

Eustace twisted his neck to turn his head and scowl at her.

"Well, I'll help," Tumnus assured her. "Naturally."

"Good." She let go of Eustace's sleeve.

"You've wrinkled my clothes," he complained, rubbing vigorously at his creased sleeve with his palm open flat.

"How do you know so much about this man?" Ammi asked, ignoring Eustace now. She, unlike Tumnus, had not realized-not yet, from that distance-that the man looked a great deal like someone they knew very well.

Tumnus closed his eyes, looking pained. "I raised him."

"So he was..." Eustace began, then stopped, letting his voice trail off, the old unspoken facade that they were the only Traitors that ever were-past or present-still lingering in spite of everything that had happened.

There was nothing more to be said; they all knew, they all understood.

But Ammi, for her part, didn't want to go near the man at all. She said she felt something in her stomach turn at the thought of approaching the camp and strongly recommended they all just use their brains and go _around_ it since the man hadn't even noticed them.

"No, I have to talk to him," Tumnus decided suddenly. He wasn't sure why it was, but he knew that he must speak to this boy-man, rather-who had once been his charge, who he had mentored and trained and had such high hopes for in the past.

Then Ammi, seeing something in the faun's face she was not expecting, something longing for closure, reluctantly gave in.

"So you've found me at last," said the man, barely glancing up at Tumnus. "Bloody fine timing, you have."

"Are you still angry with me?" Tumnus blurted, realizing that he had had that question on his mind for years, no matter how often he told himself he didn't care, that setting the world right by looking after Edmund and making things better for him would magically make it moot.

"What do you think?" There was no softness in the man's voice, nor even that faint trace of humanity under his gruffness that had flickered in him when he'd put that woolen blanket over Edmund and Lucy the night before.

"You're not ever going to forgive me," Tumnus noted.

"Why should I?" The man's eyes stared daggers at him.

Eustace blurted, "Perhaps because he's been raising your son for you?"

Ammi smiled, pleasantly surprised by Eustace's little out-burst, thinking the dratted kid was finally getting a bit of back-bone to him, but uncharacteristically made no comment of her own.

"He's very like me," said the man.

"You've see him!" exclaimed Tumnus.

"You just missed him; he was here this morning."

"Was he all right?" Eustace asked, leaning forward slightly.

"He was in the form of a wolf, and his human feet are solid gold, but aside from that he seemed well enough."

"Was he alone?" Ammi wanted to know.

"Nope, had his demistar with him." He rolled his eyes. "He's too protective of her. You should have taught him better reasoning, Tumnus." When his eyes settled, they were on the faun's face again, accusingly.

"You know what?" said Tumnus, his chin shaking with emotion. "I'm glad you never forgave me. I just realized, I never forgave _you_ , either."

"Letting somebody love is letting them be weak," the man said bitterly. "You killed the others by not looking after them right, gave them all a way out. Now you've killed my son by letting him fall in love with something Jadis wants. So now even my stupid, sentimental son gets a way out of this horrible life before I do. Thanks to your care, Tumnus."

"If you want to die," Ammi cut in, pushing Eustace out of the way, "we'd be more than happy to oblige you."

The man smirked. In a flash he had snagged Ammi's elbow. "Is that so?"

"Unhand me!" shouted Ammi.

"Don't worry, pretty girl," the man laughed, shoving her away so hard she banged into Eustace and they both ended up on the ground; "I don't go for Traitors." Oddly enough, he didn't want women who were cut from the same cloth as himself. Perhaps, in some way, no matter how little they physically did or did not _look_ like her, they put him too much in mind of Mabel. He felt no pity for them, regardless, just as he had been incapable of truly sympathizing even with his other cousin when she was alive, but he wouldn't attack them.

Eustace and Ammi brushed themselves off and stood back up, glowering simultaneously.

"What did you say to Edmund?" Tumnus demanded of his former charge.

"Is that the wolf-boy's name, then? _Edmund_?" He looked almost pensive. "He didn't tell me."

" _What_ did you say?" Tumnus repeated.

"Before or after he almost killed me for touching the demistar?"

Tumnus gritted his teeth, furious that he had dared put his hands on Lucy. "After."

"I gave him a little piece of advice, is all." The man filled them in on the nose-bleed story.

A shallow little gasp found its way out of Ammi's throat, and her face became unreadable for a few moments, but she said nothing.

"You might have told me that all those years ago," bemoaned the faun. "Perhaps, if we'd known..."

"And that's why I didn't say anything," he snorted. "The boy is going to kill himself for love anyway. He's stupid. So I decided to give him his best chance. It's not much, but it's what I know."

"You're right," Tumnus retorted. "It's not much. And it's certainly not enough to make up for seventeen years."

"I never said I _wanted_ to make up for them." The man shrugged his shoulders. "Now leave me, all of you. You're not welcome here."

"It must be terrible," Tumnus said, at what he knew might well be their last parting.

"What?" said the man.

"Having even death hate you so much it won't have you willingly."


	31. Gondola to Terebinthia

Because he would not tell her his name, Lucy had gotten into a habit of calling the wolf who continued to accompany her on her journey 'My Wolf'.

At first she had made a game of trying to guess what his real name might be, offering up all the names she knew in alphabetical order (Susan would have been so proud); she began with 'Albert' and made it all the way to names starting with the letter E before giving up entirely.

The reason she stopped was not so much frustration as it an unexpected inward jump or unexplainable shock.

When she reached the letter E, naturally one of the first names that came into her head was 'Edmund', but no sooner had the first absently-spoken syllable died on her lips than she sensed something wrong. The wolf's fur bristled, though he managed to keep his face unmoved, and her stomach turned. Both wolf and girl had stood still and looked at each other for a moment, impassive.

Then Lucy had shaken her head and made herself leave the matter alone. That wasn't her wolf's name; it was only in her thoughts because that was the friend who she was going to rescue, it now seemed, with the wolf's help. But that something queer inside of her had stirred at pinning that particular name to the wolf, for that one passing moment, was undeniable.

So he became My Wolf after that.

In fact, Lucy used those two words to address him so often that she almost forgot that they even _meant_ anything.

One morning, as they were walking along a glade of thinning trees, Lucy found herself telling the wolf all about what happened between herself and Edmund, how he betrayed her. She wasn't sure _why_ she wanted tell him, only that she thought maybe he would understand it better than Peter and Susan had.

He listened very intently, his face even looking quite pained at certain parts of her story. Then, when she finished, he swallowed hard and shook the fur on his back with a rough shudder. "So let me get this straight," he said, tilting his head up so that he was looking directly into her face. "He leads you on, lies to you, and you walk in on him practically throwing himself at this Ammi person while stating that he doesn't love you. Then he's seemingly kidnapped, and all of a sudden it doesn't matter that he didn't even so much as _try_ to apologize for what he did to you?"

"Maybe he did try," said Lucy, thinking about the book and the dagger he'd left behind.

"Doesn't sound like it to me," grumped the wolf.

"He's my friend," Lucy insisted. "What else matters?"

"I don't think he ever even really liked you."

Lucy sighed. "He must have, at least a little bit."

"He's not worth this," Wolf-Edmund pressed. It felt weird saying negative stuff about himself, but he had to try _something_. And he honestly didn't believe he was worth even _half_ of the trouble Lucy was going to for his sake, not a traitor like him.

"What measures the worth of a person anyway?" Lucy said quietly. "Edmund's a good person, My Wolf. He always was, even when he did things I couldn't-still don't-understand. If _I_ was stolen away by a witch, I'm sure he would do the same for me."

" _I'm_ not," snorted the wolf.

"Then you don't know him like I do," said Lucy, stepping down on a frozen twig that cracked lightly under the heel of her boot.

"You realize all you're doing is trailing after him like a lovesick puppy," he pointed out. "If he fancies Ammi so much, why isn't _she_ the one making this trip to save his sorry hide?"

Lucy shrugged. "I haven't seen Ammi since I walked in on the both of them. I don't know what happened to her. She might not even know he was taken to Charn."

"Or perhaps she simply has the good sense to let the nasty blighter rot."

She stopped walking and frowned at him. "Please don't talk about him like that."

"You're hopeless," sighed her wolf, leaping over a small frozen puddle.

Lucy resumed walking, her lips shut tightly.

"Don't be mad for keeps, Lucy," said Wolf-Edmund after a bit. He didn't want her to dislike him as a nameless wolf, only as the human called Edmund Maugrim; and he didn't want her to stop speaking to him.

"I'm not mad at you," Lucy assured him. "I just don't know what else to say. Why do you hate Edmund so?"

"I don't, I just think _you_ should."

"Do you smell that?" she said suddenly, leaning into the wind that blew the hood of her cloak back. "It's got to be the sea. We must be getting closer."

Wolf-Edmund had actually smelled it a while back, his nose was better than hers, but he hadn't said anything. Frankly, he'd hoped she would take a wrong turn on the way and delay their sailing towards Charn.

Now he had a new hope: that no one would be willing to take her on-board a sailing vessel, or better yet that there would be nothing appropriate departing.

"Mmm," he finally managed.

"My Wolf," said Lucy, exhaling the breath of salty air, "I've been thinking. What happens to you after all this?"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, couldn't we...I don't know...find some way of disenchanting you? Wouldn't you like to be human again?"

Human again, and also crippled and useless again. No, he wouldn't like that at all; the only time he liked being human now was when Lucy was asleep. He didn't need to be able to stand up properly or walk during those few precious moments. And to think she still hadn't the foggiest notion that he held her nearly every night now while she dozed!

"I don't know," he said quietly.

"I suppose it would be a little strange," Lucy agreed, trying to be sympathetic; "to think of being a human again after spending so long as a wolf. But, don't you think about it _some_ times? There must be a way."

"None that would be of any use in my situation, trust me," sighed Wolf-Edmund. "You have no idea what you're up against."

"I just wish there was something I could do to thank you," Lucy explained gently. "I feel sorry for you. You've been such a dear friend to me. I didn't know how lonely I was traveling on my own before."

"I'm sorry." Edmund still blamed himself for her having to be off traveling towards her certain doom.

"Why are you apologizing?" She smiled down at him. "You've been wonderful."

There was so much kindness-and love-in just that one little smile; it made his heart ache with longing. He regained control of himself before a whimper he wouldn't be able to explain away could escape him.

The thinning trees finally gave way to a strip of bare land home to several beds of pointy, frost-covered pebbles of blacks, purples, and blues, over which lapped foamy green and white flecks of the west-facing sea.

There were no people of any kind or sailing vessels in sight. For a bit, they had to sit down on the rocks and consider their next move.

Of course, Edmund was only pretending to be thinking of how to get across the water; he had no intentions of giving Lucy any ideas, and deep down she probably knew she was largely on her own with this one, that her wolf wasn't going to help her. She wondered briefly if he was not keen on water, dismissing the thought when she saw him splash absently at the wet, frothy tide with his fore-paws as it came in; obviously, it wasn't the water itself he wanted so badly to keep them away from.

If the gondola-man had not shown up, Lucy might truly have been at a loss, though it's certainly possible that the White Witch-or some other powerful force, be one of good or evil-would have likely brought a boat to her eventually.

When the white gondola with the sand-coloured prowl first came into view, being pulled into place by a tall, olive-skinned man who looked vaguely like he was of Telmarine ethnicity, Wolf-Edmund let out a frustrated little grunt. What was that blasted gondola doing here? Where were all the passengers?

At present, there were only two people on board: the Telmarine steering the boat and a slender slip of a Calormen lady who-if the faint twinkle of a thin gold band round her left ring finger was any indication-was probably his wife.

There suddenly arrived, from further down the pebble-filled shoreline, a small Archenland family made up of a slender blonde mother so white-skinned she was almost translucent, a broad, slightly darker, pale-browed father, and their little rosy-cheeked bare-headed son of about nine or ten years old. Doubtless, these were the Telmarine gondolier's intended passengers. With them, there was also one Narnian, but he was a Talking Mouse with a golden band from which stuck out a long scarlet feather almost as long as the creature's furry back around one ear, not human like the Archenlanders. Each of them, including the mouse, had a little bundle tied to a stick over one shoulder.

Lucy's face lit up as she ran towards them. "Mister Gondolier!" she called out, waving her arms to be sure he spotted her.

"Madam!" he exclaimed in surprise, arching his back so that he was standing up even straighter. He had not been expecting any young female passengers today, save for his wife, quite a few years his junior, who always accompanied him on his longer jobs. "How might I be of service to you?"

"Please, Sir," she said, "where is this gondola going? Very deep north?"

"No further than Terebinthia, Madam."

"Are there ships that will take passengers north from Terebinthia this time of year?" Lucy wanted to know.

"Not as many," he replied, twisting his mouth thoughtfully, "but _some_ , yes. I'd be willing almost to stake my life on it, I'm that sure."

"Then, please," Lucy said, screwing up her courage, "would you take me-" She stopped and looked over her shoulder at her wolf. "And my friend," she added. "Would you take us both there with you?"

"Would be my pleasure, Madam," said the Telmarine gondolier. "Except, it isn't really up to me. This family has hired me and my services to escort them to Terebinthia, I can take you and that beast along only if I have their say-so."

"Wait a moment." Wolf-Edmund's eyes narrowed, realizing something. "Don't Telmarines disapprove of sea-voyaging?" True, that Caspian fellow had not minded it, and Captain Drinian was probably on the Dawn Treader more often than he was on land, but as a rule, most older Telmarines were not trained to manage boats, especially not pleasure-boats like gondolas.

"Most of them do, my good wolf," he answered politely. "My grandfather would have had me disowned for my current occupation if he were alive today, but most of the elders of my family have died off, and the younger ones, they are interested in waters and navigation, simply because they were forbidden to them for so many years. Besides, my elders would have also had my head for marrying a Calormene missus of fairly base birth and dubbing her a lady of Telmar. I don't do things for the sake of pleasing them. They're dead, resting hopefully as they never could in life; so I judge that a decent man must live for himself and his family, perhaps his very good friends too, but no others."

Lucy was liking the gondolier, he seemed very nice, but she was too nervous to think much about him or his pretty wife who was peering over at her curiously, for she now had to convince the Archenlanders to allow her to come along-as well as to bring My Wolf with her. She would not leave him, just as he had never left her. She wouldn't dream of it.

"Please," she said to them, holding out her hands, which were-she realized at that moment-red and chapped from cold.

The father of the family smiled at her. "I don't think we'll mind another passenger, not when she's so slight. I daresay there's room enough."

"My Wolf?" Her eyes flickered to him.

"Yes, bring him," said the boy before his father could answer. "I've always wanted to talk to a wolf."

Wolf-Edmund, for his part, did not really want very much to talk to _him_ , very tired and discouraged and wishing at that particular point in time for the earth to open up and swallow him and Lucy both, sparing them Charn and all its misery, but he didn't say so, he just gawked at the family and let Lucy do the talking.

The mouse, who's name turned out to be Reepicheep, looked suspiciously at Wolf-Edmund and said, to Lucy, "My lady, my life is ever at your command, worthy honour for your good sake obvious enough, but if you will excuse me, that one-" Here he looked very sharply at the wolf. "That one... He has got the look of some treachery about him."

"Nonsense," laughed Lucy, shaking her head. She found Reepicheep simply adorable and had the most intense desire to take him up in her arms and cuddle him, though she figured he would be rather offended if she did so, but she thought he was mad as anything to be suspicious of her wolf friend. _Perhaps all smaller creatures, talking or non-talking, are a_ little _afraid-deep down-of big predators, like wolves or bears,_ she thought to herself. "He's been true as steel. He saved me from..." Her cheeks flushed; she didn't like to dwell on what it was that horrible man who looked freakishly like an older version of her former betrothed had wanted to do with her.

The mouse considered. "Well, if he is truly your friend and a protector to you, then his enemies will be taught to fear us and he has nothing to fear himself." He rested his paw on the hilt of a sword so tiny Lucy thought it looked like it had been made for a large blinking-eyed doll of the kind she played with as a toddler.

"Poor thing," the mother of the Archenlander family cut in. "You look cold, in spite of that lovely cloak of yours. Have you been in the woods unattended to very long?"

She smiled. "Well, I _have_ been traveling in the forest, but I've been looked after well enough."

"Well," said the mother kindly, "toss your pack into the gondola and get in yourself."

Soon they were all huddled into the gondola and the Telmarine was gracefully guiding them out to sea.

Lucy sat with her green velvet hood over her head, her deerskin pack on one side of her, and the wolf, seated in a tall manner with his back straight and his paws pressed down into the wood directly in front of him, on the other.

The gondolier's Calormene wife commented passively in her native tongue on how unseasonably peaceful the waves were this year, to which Edmund replied thoughtlessly in the same language.

"You speak Calormene?" Lucy asked her wolf, surprised.

He cursed inwardly. How could he have been so stupid? "Only a little," Wolf-Edmund lied quickly.

"Would I be right," the father of the Archenland family asked Lucy, "in assuming by your accent, Lady, that you're a Narnian like Reepicheep?"

"Yes." She nodded.

"I had a nurse who used to sing songs about Narnia," said the Archenlander boy, beaming. " _Narnia, Narnia, of castles of marble by seas tread with paws of velvet gold_ ," he began to sing softly, trying to remember the gist of the tune.

Reepicheep, who loved good music-and most especially good music about his country-began to sing along, knowing the song itself better than the boy did. " _Your dewy slopes of heather, griffins fair of feather; may your trees and single tall iron Lantern glow for ever, oh my Narnia_."

Straining, the gondolier could recall snippets of it as well. " _Talking beasts and moving trees, memories do not die-in hard times do not sigh...love rises again...sweet land of Narnia..._ "

Lucy lifted her head, her hood sliding back and landing bunched up on her shoulders. " _Even far away, we are so close, oh country may I bring friends home on the day I return; a candle still standing in my window, through happiness and sadness, may Aslan keep it burning out if from hope I will never depart_."

The mother of the Archenland family and the Calormene wife raised their hands in a pantomime of applause.

Lucy's cheeks reddened and she reached back, modestly pulling the hood back over her head.

" _Oh, Narnia, I recall-yes, I do; oh, homeland_ ," the gondolier managed to add.

Edmund felt like crying. He didn't know the song (when had he ever had time for Narnian music lessons?) but it was still painfully beautiful. After all, his time spent in the Lantern Waste, in the Ramandus' mansion, was the closest thing he'd ever experienced to a real home; the thought of candles or rush lights burning in that house he could never return to broke his heart.

It was bad enough with everybody's singing, but Lucy's little voice singing her portion of the song was like a knife being stuck into his chest then turned and twisted further in mercilessly. She sounded so brave-cheerful, even-and he didn't know how she could be, not after all that happened. She honestly believed she was going to bring him home from Charn, back to Narnia.

Whimpering, the wolf lowered his head, putting it, and his two front paws, down in Lucy's lap, his ears flattening, not with anger, but with dejection and despair.

Humming along with the singing of the other passengers (mainly Reepicheep at this point), Lucy gently ran her fingers along her wolf's fur on his head, ears, and back. Poor My Wolf, how down-hearted he suddenly seemed!

To her great shock, under the dark gray fur on his back, she could feel the remains of crusted-over welts that had mostly healed but not without leaving scars and torn-up skin. She imagined it would look much worse if he didn't have all that fur to hide it. She also wondered how he had come by such injuries, and why these lashes seemed so bizarrely familiar to her in spite of the fact that this was the first time she'd ever even noticed them.

When the gondola finally docked in Terebinthia Lucy's legs felt shaky and the land seemed to be going up and down like waves, her body needing to readjust from her sea voyage.

Once, she staggered sideways and nearly fell, but her wolf leaned against her calf, steadying her.

It felt strange for Edmund to be back in the place, the very harbor, where this had all begun, before he'd realized his last mission wasn't going to be so simple, before he could have possibly known he was going to fall in love with the demistar he was meant to betray.

It had seemed, up till that very moment, so terribly long ago that he'd woken up here, sore and stiff, in a berry bush with his cousin, feigning biting his ear and smearing it with red berry-juice; only, upon returning, it felt like it could have been yesterday. And yet, he couldn't even remember who he was, the way he truly thought, back in that 'yesterday'- _that_ much had changed; _he'd_ changed _that_ much.

Except, 'yesterday' it hadn't been so cold; whereas today, it was chilly and there was a slick dusting of powdery snow on everything-the wet, sticky kind.

He half-listened passively as Lucy bid goodbye to Reepicheep, even daring to give him a very quick hug (almost a cuddle but not quite) farewell, and to the gondolier, his wife, and the Archenland family.

"I enjoyed speaking-and singing-with you all," Lucy told them sweetly.

"The pleasure was ours, Madam," said the Telmarine gondolier.

The little Archenland boy even kissed her hand without being prompted by either of his parents. He smiled adoringly, and Edmund understood then, if he didn't already, that every subject of hers when she was queen would be in love with her from the moment they saw her crowned.

Unfortunately, finding a place to stay the night, once they parted from the people they'd traveled with, proved more difficult than they had expected.

Because talking animals were the norm in Narnia, Lucy had never been to a place where animals were not permitted simply because they were animals. She was quite put-out when a snobbish man told her, "I'm sorry, I don't care who's daughter you are, Missie; you may not bring your big dog into this inn, rules are rules."

"He's not a dog," she had retorted peevishly; "he's a _wolf._ And a _talking_ wolf, at that."

"I don't care _what_ you say he is," had been the snappish yet cool rebuttal. "If he walks on all floors, then he isn't welcome here."

Wolf-Edmund urged her to for pity's sake just take a bloody room in one of the inns and he would sleep outside in an alleyway and meet up with her in the morning, but Lucy argued that she couldn't possibly spend the night in any place where talking beasts were discriminated against.

"Well, where do you expect to sleep, then?" he huffed, snorting impatiently at her. "In an abandoned doorway?"

Ironically, that was more or less exactly where they ended up spending the night. Lucy found a splendid little house close-by the harbor with a big door-frame and an even bigger porch, over which was a strong slanted roof of red-dyed steel to keep the snow and rain off. It was clearly very old and no longer in use; all the windows were boarded up, as was the door's entrance itself beyond the wide frame.

They made themselves quite snug on that porch, and as soon as Edmund was sure Lucy was sleeping soundly, he slipped off the green ring and turned back into himself.

Just to be safe, he buried his gold feet under the velvet cloak (which Lucy was using for a blanket) so that passersby wouldn't notice anything remarkable about them. Then he wrapped his arm around her middle and let himself rest his tired eyelids for a bit.

His mind drifted off, letting his body go into a much heavier slumber than he consciously intended to allow himself.

What awoke him, during the darkest hour of the night, was a series of cries and moans from Lucy, who was evidently having a bad dream. "No...please...let me go...don't...get off me!" She shoved at his arm, flinging him from his side onto his back.

Edmund, groggy and irritable, almost snapped at her, but then the times _she_ had soothed away _his_ nightmares (including when he'd put a dagger to her throat, mistaking her for Jadis) all came back to him, and he responded tenderly instead. "Shh...it's fine...you're dreaming...shh...nothing's going to hurt you."

She stopped thrashing and shoving, her moaning rapidly decreasing, and he thought for sure that she was going to remain asleep, and so, perhaps stupidly, made no attempt to slip the green ring back on his finger and turn into a wolf again.

Without warning, her eyes fluttered open.

The whole scene had been vastly different from her point of view.

In her nightmare, the horrible robber man who looked uncommonly like Edmund had somehow turned up on this porch in Terebinthia and was trying once again to force himself on her; she cried and cried for her wolf, only he didn't show. Panicked, she had kicked and shoved as hard as she could, managing to get the man's arm from around her (or so she thought-of course, all she'd really done was knock a hapless, crippled Edmund flat on his back).

Then she had felt warm breath on her ear and a gentle voice, one she found she liked very much, was whispering soft, comforting things to her, telling her everything was fine.

Waking, she didn't see her wolf; but there was surely someone with her, for she could hear his breath. For one horrible moment, she thought it was the man, but then she realized the contour in the dark was a mite too slender to be him and at the same moment remembered that she and her would-be attacker were on different land masses now.

"Who are you?" she asked, using her hands to scoot her bottom further away from whoever was there.

"Lucy, it's only me."

She recognized the accent, but still couldn't see the person's face. "My Wolf?"

"Yes."

"You're human." Even with the lack of light making it impossible to see for sure what he looked like, she could tell that much. "What happened?"

"Sometimes I turn human at night," he invented wildly. "It's very sparing; I'll be a wolf again by morning."

"You might have told me," she said softly, breathing a sigh of relief.

"I thought you would stay up every night to try and see if it happened," he came up with. "You need your sleep."

She accepted that answer. "Oh."

In the moment of dead-silence that followed, his gold feet scraped against the wooden porch as Edmund drew them closer to himself.

"What was that?" Lucy turned her head, looking for the source of the strange heavy dragging sound.

"I didn't hear anything. Are you going to be all right?"

"Yes." Lucy still felt a little shaky, but the knowledge that her wolf was still with her-in any form-was all she needed for now.

Thoughtlessly, he reached out and stroked one of her arms with the back of his hand.

It felt so natural that Lucy leaned in, not realizing quickly enough that she was enjoying his lingering touch a little _too_ much. Her eyes closed as she drew nearer to him, tilting her head. His lips brushed-then pressed-against hers, kissing her.

Gasping, Lucy gently but firmly pushed him away. "I'm sorry, I can't." She bit her lower lip and swallowed back a sob.

"I shouldn't have..." he apologized, remembering just in time not to speak with a Narnian accent, his emotions nearly getting the better of him.

Lucy knew she had no reason to feel like she was betraying Edmund; after all, they weren't betrothed anymore, and he had cheated on her with Ammi when they _were_. All the same, her feelings for My Wolf didn't bring her any closer to getting over Edmund. If anything, they only made her love him more.

"I...I think I'll go back to sleep now. I'm sorry." She turned away from him, still not having the foggiest idea what her wolf looked like as a human, and laid back down. She hoped desperately that she hadn't gone and ruined things with her friend.

 _Poor Lucy_ , Edmund thought, knowing she was crying silently to herself and that there was nothing he could say or do to rid her of these particular tears; _you're way too loyal to me, and I have no idea why._


	32. Charn

"But, My Wolf, the compass says _that_ way's north," Lucy protested, holding out the glittering moon-coloured instrument she'd gotten from the morning star Aravir.

"And I'm telling you it's _wrong_ ," growled Wolf-Edmund peevishly. "North is the other way."

They were pressed up against each other in a small wooden coracle in the middle of a choppy wintergreen sea. They had departed from Terebinthia over a fortnight ago, despite Edmund's attempts to keep them there longer.

He knew Jadis was-by this point-counting every single delay he caused deliberately and would surely find a way of making him pay for each of them, but he no longer cared about that. He figured he was most likely going to die one way or another, struggling to get Lucy out of the witch's reach, regardless; so what did it really matter?

They had not, thank goodness, actually left Terebinthia in the rummy little coracle they were currently paddling around in. They'd found passage on what was rather a fine galleon, in all fairness, as folk of all work; Lucy became a cabin-girl, and Edmund quite possibly the first cabin-wolf in all of known history.

The captain of the galleon was, it turned out, not only half-Narnian, but also half-dwarf on the same side, and did not approve of discriminating against Talking animals. It was true a wolf was not going to be much good-whether or not it could speak-with a mop, or at slicing up bread and vegetables and serving them to the crew, but doubtless such a noble beast would have other ways of helping out, including being able to do something about the unfortunately rapidly increasing non-talking rat population in the galley. He'd had a little bit of a harder time accepting Lucy, simply because he didn't agree with the practice of treating a gentle-bred lady like a servant, especially not one with star's blood flowing through her veins. Only, she was very determined to travel northward with him, sweetly yet firmly refusing to take no for an answer; and perhaps the fact that she wore tunics and tights instead of dresses or gowns (her silver dress remained in a crumbled wad at the bottom of her pack), and made friends with all the crew members, even the ones who'd been wary of her initially, believing lady-folk on any ship to be nothing but bad luck, helped to sway him.

Things generally went pretty well during Edmund and Lucy's stay on the galleon. There were only the minimal storms for that time of year, though one crew member, a skinny, mute sailor with a dark mustache and a hesitant smile, was lost over-board and never heard from again. And Edmund's biggest immediate concern, that one of the many crew members, lonely for their wives back home, might possibly take it in their heads to do some dishonour to Lucy, had been put completely to rest after a small misunderstanding.

He'd made it quite clear that he would tear out the throats of any of the men who dared lay a finger on her, and none of them (they were over-all good fellows anyhow) wanted to be torn up by an enraged wolf any more than they wanted to hurt the harmless, friendly cabin-girl in the first place. But one sailor, a big chap with a face that was often as red as a tomato from laughing so hard, lingered around her constantly, talking to her, telling jokes, often slapping lightly at her shoulders or fiddling with her hair, which made Edmund a little nervous.

Thankfully, the captain noticed the semi-murderous look forming on the cabin-wolf's face one morning when the sailor was sitting a little too close to Lucy, who was busily peeling potatoes and shelling peas, listening politely to his rather colourful story about the time he went fishing after having a mite too much red wine and struggled to bring the biggest fish he'd ever caught in his life home, not sure why everybody was looking at him strange as he dragged his catch through town, till he woke up late the next morning with a bad hangover and his wife demanded to know why in the world he'd come barreling into the house, quarter past midnight, dragging a _whale_ behind him.

Lucy had paused for a moment, her current potato only half-rid of its skin, and twisted her neck to give him a puzzled glance. "Did you _really_ catch a whale, or are you just teasing me?"

He winked and put his arm around her shoulders, giving them a light squeeze. He meant it innocently, and Lucy-in spite of what she'd gone through recently-took it as such; but Wolf-Edmund, who perhaps would have thought it fine otherwise, disliked that the sailor seemed to be constantly singling her out for attention.

It was then that the captain had noticed the potential disaster and spoken up. "My good wolf, you don't need to worry. He won't hurt her, I promise you."

Wolf-Edmund had still seemed uncertain, but his expression softened just a little.

"If he slid by her nervously and didn't meet her eyes, then I'd say you had reason to worry. I've known the man almost all my life, and he's true as steel. He was always kind of, well, _shy_ , I guess you'd call it, around other boys; his father abandoned him when he was quite small, and he had a bad knuckle that wouldn't let him play ball games like his male peers could. So he spent most of his time with his mother and older half-sisters, who were the result of a previous marriage long before his father turned up. Women are his chums. Always have been. He'll squeeze their shoulders, or slap them lightly, and tell jokes he maybe shouldn't in their presence, simply because he's comfortable with them. He's all right with the men on this ship, but that's only on account of his being so used to them; he's quite mum around strangers of the male gender. When he is attracted to a woman in a romantic way, he acts just the same, silent as a corpse.

"When he met his wife, the mad boy wouldn't even _look_ at her-poor fellow was struck dumb first time he caught a glimpse of her face. And she thought he didn't like her on account of that; always saw him embracing other women and sitting close to them, but he wouldn't come near her. Then one day she took to crying about it, because she was in love with him and thought he wouldn't have her. He noticed her crying and was furious because he thought somebody had been cruel and offended her. You could have knocked him down with a feather when he found out the truth: that she thought he didn't like her. So of course he bucked up and explained himself, and next thing anyone knew, they were putting a wedding together.

"He's got a daughter about Lucy's age-and a niece, too-I suppose he just misses them, makes up for it by fawning over her while she's working on deck. If it actually bothers her, well, I can have a talk with him about giving her some breathing space. If not, if you're only worried about him having some unseemly motive, then I would personally suggest just letting him be. Truth is, if anyone on this ship-and they aren't a bit likely to- _did_ try to hurt her, I think he'd beat the living daylights out of whatever's left of them when you're through with their sorry hides, and that's the truth."

And Edmund relaxed after that, letting down his guard. In fact, he and that sailor became something like friends, bonding largely over the fact that they both thought there was no one else in the world quite like Lucy, having very little else in common besides their adoration of her.

Then the day had come when the galleon docked in a northern port based in some cold, icy island that was far more glacier than rock and neither the crew nor the captain would take them any further north.

Nothing else for it, Lucy had slipped away with nothing but her pack, boots, and cloak (My Wolf right beside her, of course) and took the coracle out to sea.

Now it was a battle of wits in regards to directions. Edmund was doing everything in his power to make Lucy doubt everything from herself to the sanity of the dwarf who gave her directions to Charn in the first place, all in hopes of delaying this-and, sadly, all, it seemed, in vain. She was insistent on following-at the very least-Aravir's compass, because she was certain that they could trust _it_ to know which way was north, if nothing else.

"My Wolf," cried Lucy suddenly, clutching the compass more tightly between her cold, stiff fingers because she suspected the wolf was now deliberately trying to knock out of her hands and into the water, "please stop it! _This_ is north, and that's where we're going."

"This is north, and that's where we're going..." Wolf-Edmund mocked her under his breath. "Pshaw!" he snorted emphatically.

Lucy scowled and kept paddling the oar vigorously.

It took five or six hours, and Lucy's hands were raw and rather splinter-filled by the time she managed it, but they soon heard the icy crunch of snow under the wood of the coracle as it slid roughly onto the barren, wintery land mass.

Wolf-Edmund shivered and shook violently as he jumped out of the coracle and onto the snow-embedded ground.

They had gotten there quickly, all things considered. Jadis must have done something to make them go faster; she must have been getting impatient.

Then again, since he had never gone to Charn _with_ the demistar he betrayed, for all he knew it was always like this on the last real stretch of the journey; perhaps the witch just toyed with the girls for a few hours, holding them off, letting them strain themselves at sea in some rummy little boat, struggling to get to Charn, then finally, when she tried of this game, had a magic current pull them right in.

He watched numbly as Lucy pulled the coracle further in-land so that it wouldn't get sucked into an ice-flecked wave and roll away (she figured she would need it to get back, and wondered anxiously if Edmund and the wolf would both fit in there with her) and then began gathering some 'firewood' (if you could even call it that) from a dead bush covered in thistles and leaves of the sort that burned quickly and provided only the most sparing warmth imaginable.

They ate some cold, dried meat, most of which the tired, pale-faced demistar gave to the wolf, murmuring that he would need extra strength, was bigger than her, and that she herself wasn't too hungry right then anyhow.

Because Edmund was still kind of mad at her for not staying lost at sea for longer, even if it wasn't entirely her fault, he _did_ eat much more of what was supposed to be her share of the food than he would have had he not been so cross, mostly out of spite, which he regretted when his temper cooled off and he saw just how bleak and hollow-eyed his poor Lucy was beginning to look.

She was blowing repeatedly on her quivering hands. She would have rubbed them against her cloak, but the splinters made them smart when she tried it.

Wolf-Edmund blinked at her and lowered his head onto his paws, all the while thinking only of how to keep her from arriving at the White Witch's castle.

The frightening fact of the matter was, he realized, that she was so keen on saving him, especially now that she was so close, it would take nothing short of death itself to stop her from barging in there-right into the witch's trap.

He thought of what his father had told him, about Traitor blood on the stone table. _Was_ it possible that he could somehow save Lucy that way? There had to be a reason the man who sired him had never tried it; something to do with selfishness, certainly, but also with fear.

What _happened_ to the Traitor who's blood did some damage to the witch's power on that table? There had to be some kind of potentially horrid-possibly even _fatal_ -repercussion to have kept all past Traitors, those who might have-like his father-suspected something odd, from ever trying it.

 _If you're going to die, do it on the stone table_ ; that's what his father had said.

Did that mean bleeding on the stone table was as good as signing one's own death warrant? Edmund didn't think it could simply mean Jadis going after him. What could she do if she was already powerless anyway? The demistars always died; so it was likely some kind of trade-traitor's blood in exchange for witch's intended victim.

Well, it seemed he was going to find out, one way or another.

What frightened him far more than the thought of bleeding on the stone table in an attempt to save Lucy was the thought that he might have to leave her soon. They were on Charnian soil now, so how much longer until Jadis separated them? A day? An hour? Five minutes?

The sky was getting darker over-head and Lucy, before getting ready to use the damp green velvet cloak that now reeked of seawater and Aslan knew what else as a sleeping bag on the ground, looked sadly over at her wolf. "My Wolf, are you still angry with me?"

The wolf shook his head, picked himself up, shaking a layer of sleet-like frost out of his fur, and padded, his tail between his legs, over to her, settling down at her side.

Lucy ran her fingers along his fur, trying to soothe herself to sleep; there was nothing she liked so well as the feel of fur. She had gotten most of the splinters out of her hands, but the open miniature wounds they'd left still ached as she dragged them along the wolf's ears and back.

Thoughtlessly, she traced those welts and scar-marks on his back with her middle and ring fingers on one hand. They still seemed so familiar to her, though from _where_ still continued to perplex her.

She wondered suddenly if he was going to turn back into a human tonight, and if it would be awkward between them again if he did. The last night he had, on that porch in Terebinthia, they'd kissed, and she still hadn't gotten over the warm yet hollow feeling it left inside of her.

Selfishly, she almost wished he could stay a wolf for ever, so that they could always be best friends and never have to feel uncomfortable with one another again, but the kinder part of her, the part of her that always won out when she thought things through with both her heart and her brain, still wanted to find a way of disenchanting him when this was all over.

Stroking the fur under his neck, her hands finally beginning to feel a little-a _very_ little-bit warmer, she found herself letting her hands slide lower, down towards his fore-legs. She discovered something odd about them that she hadn't noticed before; he had a rather gory blood-mark wound on the one, and a vivid shinny green ring on a claw on the other.

"What's that?" Lucy gaped at the ring.

Wolf-Edmund, his eyes half-closed, didn't realize what it was she had noticed. If he had, he would have pulled his paw away from her in a heartbeat, only he hadn't a clue, too tired and weary to register what she was blabbing about. She'd been murmuring a lot of things to him while she stroked his fur, and by then he was more listening to the steady rhythm of her now slightly raspy, but still heartbreakingly kindly, voice speaking to him than he was to what she was actually saying.

Horrible thing, she thought, he'll get that claw roughed up for sure if he has that caught on it. Where could he have picked it up? I wonder, can I get it off of him?

Lucy quickly and quietly tried to lift up his paw and slide the ring off, but no sooner had her fingers lightly grasped the shinny green piece of jewelry than the wolf's eyes became-for a quick moment-wholly unrecognizable, flashing a misty emerald hue.

Growling as if he were dumb and wild, he snapped his teeth and bit her cruelly on the wrist.

It didn't draw blood, but it hurt as badly as if it had, and left a nasty-looking row of bruise-black teethmarks.

Edmund felt utterly panicked. He hadn't wanted, or meant, to bite her; the action had been completely involuntary, and he had a pretty good idea of who had caused it by extending her full power over him and the magic ring now that they were in Charn.

The ring's pull was stronger here. When it repelled him from Lucy on that frozen river, it had nothing worse to threaten him with than relatively small discomforts. Here, evidently, it could do far, far worse.

If it was scary for Lucy to watch his eyes go back to normal, the green colour and smoky mist flicking out of them like a double-wick candle being blown out, it was down-right _terrifying_ for Edmund; he _felt_ them changing back. He wasn't in control of himself when he bit Lucy, but he had still felt himself do it and remembered as clearly as if he _had_ been in control, which was the most horrible part about it.

"Why?" Lucy swallowed hard and a cascade of escaped tears that would not be held back froze to her cheeks.

He remembered that that had been what she'd said when he had gone into her room to see her one last time at the mansion after 'cheating on' her with Ammi. And he thought to himself that it was a good question for her to ask, in any of these given situations she had been thrust into. _Why_? What had she ever done to deserve any of this happening to her?

Once again, he had no answer to give her, no explanation. There was nothing he could tell her, not now.

Physical pain seared through his body, but it took Wolf-Edmund almost a full minute to register it, overcome with _emotional_ pain.

The claw with the ring on it hurt like it was a large sewing pin being jabbed into a fleshy hand and the blood in his veins felt as if it were on fire, boiling him from the inside out. There was a dizziness and a tugging.

He understood; Jadis was calling him back now. He had to go back to the castle and let Lucy come the rest of the way by herself.

If it could have been helped, if he had stood even the smallest fraction of a chance of staying with her by fighting, he would have resisted until he collapsed as a dead man in a wolf's body. But he didn't dare risk hurting Lucy. As long as he was using the witch's magic, to some extent, he would always be playing by her rules; he was a wolf only because she gave him use of the green ring during missions. And if her rules, her bad magic, would force him-in this form-to do harm to Lucy again, he knew what he had to do.

The wolf looked brokenly at her, whimpered, then turned and started running away so fast there was no way of possibly catching up to him.

Lucy called out hoarsely for him to come back, but he didn't even so much as peek back at her over his shoulder-blades.

She waited all night, hoping against hope that he would come back. She slept only for an hour, a single, fitful and miserably cold hour, and when she woke looked every which way for a glimpse of My Wolf coming up over any of the snowy hills.

Only he wasn't there. The fact of the matter, the one she had to face, was simply that he had _left_ her. He had left her for _real_ this time.

"He could at least have said goodbye," Lucy wept to herself, picking the frozen teardrops off the side of her face with her fingernails. "He could have done that much." Her bitten wrist hurt, but her heart hurt more.

As she trudged along that day, lonely and a little feverish and achy from the frozen dew that had encased itself around most of her body and clothing, she thought of My Wolf and all the time they'd spent together coming here. Then she thought about Edmund; her mind rested a little while on how he had betrayed her, but mostly it lingered on how much she missed him. She remembered the morbid look on his face when he'd accidentally ended up on stage with his cousin the first day they met, and the way they'd fought that dragon on the balcony, and the notes they exchanged with the honey jars. She would rather have read another _Goodnight, Lu_ note written in his own hand than a first edition of any of the finest books her favorite Narnian and Archenlander authors had to offer.

Her footing was lost and she slipped and tumbled down a hill and into a snowbank that was wet and sticky.

At her wit's end, knowing she was too exhausted to get up but simply had to anyway, Lucy pulled Edmund's dagger with Aslan's head on it out of her deerskin pack and rubbed her thumb against it. "Oh, Aslan, if you ever loved us at all..." Her voice trailed off, but, looking up, she thought she saw-and heard-an albatross somewhere above the sparse dead trees.

Within seconds, the albatross was gone, but she felt a little stronger nonetheless; just strong enough to get up and keep walking. She was going to rescue Edmund and she was going to do it _today_ -just let anybody try and stop her!

And where was Edmund while Lucy walked on and on, coming closer and closer to the White Witch's castle?

He was already there.

He arrived still in the form of a wolf, but the second he crossed the threshold into the castle, the ring dropped from his claw as if it were a few sizes too big and made an eerie, echoing _clink_ on the floor.

He stood, human again, looking around at the pillars of stone and ice, feeling that something besides the fact that he wasn't on all floors had changed.

Looking down, he saw his bare feet against the chilly floor were flesh and bone, not gold.

A mad idea entered his head. He would run away, barefooted, as fast as his no longer useless legs would take him, never stopping even to catch his breath until he reached Lucy. Then he would pick her up, march her right back to the coracle they'd come in, and push that little boat out to sea with all his might. It didn't matter that his feet would probably turn blue, then purple, then finally black, and just fall off from the cold and the snow, not if he got Lucy away from this cursed country before that happened.

 _Jadis can't have her..._ Turning around, about to put his poorly thought-out plan into action, he heard a cruel, sharp wind pick up and the doors all simultaneously slam shut before he could reach any of them.

"Edmund, please don't tell me you thought I gave you your feet back so you could run out and warn her, because that would be such an insult to my intelligence." Jadis had appeared behind him, wand in hand, eyes glinting.

Not even looking at her, Edmund said, "Why are _you_ so concerned with my feet all of a sudden?"

"You're my favorite traitor, remember? The best I ever had on my side, in fact. I'm going to miss you." She stepped in front of him. "Look at me."

He did so.

"The doors aren't locked, if you want to go to her, no one is stopping you." She smiled cruelly. "Of course, the second you cross that threshold, your feet will turn to gold again and I can easily have you dragged back in here. But if you want to try it, to give me or my servants something to do until she arrives, go ahead."

Edmund stared expressionlessly at the closed doors, tears springing up into his eyes. He couldn't leave them or he would be crippled again. Lucy was coming, and there wasn't a thing he could do to stop it.

"Don't stand there gawking, fool," said Jadis, pounding her wand on the floor. "We have important company coming."


	33. Exposed Betrayal

It is not every young woman who can honestly say they have walked, though not entirely fearlessly, quite bravely, and with their head held high, right up to the front doors of an ice castle home to an evil witch and, pushing the latch up, let themselves in, but Lucy P. Ramandu was one who did just so.

She stepped inside and looked around at a series of high ceilings supported by pillars of ice and stone, a few of them with glass bases, others that seemed to just sink into the floor like the roots of a tree in soil.

Every glass cut, every bit of stone and ice, were all sharp and angular, extremely unwelcoming in appearance.

She walked through two different archways and down a long rectangular corridor till she came to a throne room with a dais.

On the dais was a throne made of ice, over which was spread an enormous white, fur-lined shawl.

"Lucy Ramandu," said an icy, female voice behind her; "so you finally made it here. I've been expecting you."

Lucy nearly jumped out of her skin, whirling round to see the very same lady she'd witnessed kidnapping Edmund and driving off on a silver sledge standing there. She was even more beautiful up close, her mouth fuller, her colourless cheeks more overtly well-structured, her fair dreadlocks as fine and intricate as if they were spools of light silk all braided together, but she was also more _alarming_ up close as well; her blood-red mouth was even darker and her towering height was even more overt.

"Where's Edmund?" she demanded, flat out.

Jadis smiled a slow, cold smile. "Who?"

" _Edmund_ ," exclaimed Lucy angrily. "My friend. You took him, and I've come to bring him back home with me."

"What does he look like? This friend of yours?" Jadis asked, taking a step closer to her, lightly dragging the tip of her wand on the floor, making a sound that was akin to nails on a chalkboard.

Lucy shuddered involuntarily. "You ought to know, you're the one who kidnapped him!"

"Well, refresh my memory then," the witch simpered.

"He has dark hair and brown eyes," she said quickly, closing her eyes. "And he's kind of tall-not tall like you, tall for a human." She opened her eyes again, glaring hard at Jadis. "What have you done with him?"

"Nothing." Jadis snapped her fingers, signaling somebody. "Is this the Edmund you're looking for? I do believe he matches the description."

Lucy's heart pounded wildly as a familiar dark-headed person stepped out of the shadows behind the throne of ice. "Edmund! It's you; its really you. At last!" She would have rushed towards him with her hands held out, but she was so overcome that her happiness momentarily paralyzed her. It was, for a few seconds, only her eyes that could make the very last stretch of the journey over to him, taking him in.

Edmund looked at her hollowly-guiltily, even-not meeting her eyes. His own eyes were red and swollen, like he'd been crying. He said nothing.

"Do you know why he's here, little half-star?" the witch asked, tilting her painfully beautiful white face so as to cock her head at Lucy, arching a pale eyebrow.

"Because you took him away," replied Lucy, swallowing, finally coming back to herself. "That's why. You brought him here."

"No, he brought himself here," Jadis said. "And why wouldn't he? After all, he works for me."

Lucy waited for Edmund to speak up and say it wasn't true, that the witch was lying, but he didn't. "It's not true... Is it, Ed?"

Edmund's face crumbled, but he still didn't utter a single word. What could he possibly say now that would matter or make even the least bit of difference?

"It is," Jadis answered for him. "And do you want to know what he does for me?"

No, she didn't want to; she was appalled, and scared. But she nodded anyway; she couldn't help herself; she _had_ to know.

"He brings me little half-star, half-mortals like yourself," she told her. "And now he's given me you. He's led you right to me."

 _No! No, I haven't!_ Thought Edmund, his heart pounding and shaking like it was trying to shatter his chest and ribs from the inside out; _I'll never give you to her, Lucy, she can't have you!_

Lucy's eyes widened. Edmund wouldn't do that, not to her-not to _anyone_! She couldn't believe it of him. Then the old leather book with the names crossed out, the one still in her pack right at that very moment, popped into her head, and she doubted him...for just that one moment... "No..."

"This was actually his last mission for me," Jadis went on mercilessly. "He out-did himself this time, out of all the girls he's brought to me, I haven't seen one as pathetic and besotted as you, Lucy. What a novelty." She chuckled cruelly. "So much for love."

"I don't understand." Lucy felt her clenched hands shaking like her body was caught up in a giant earthquake. "Why-"

Jadis cut her off, looking at Edmund now. "You're being very rude. You should have at least said a greeting to the sad little girl who came all this way because of you. Speak to her now."

Edmund shook his head.

"That was _not_ a request, Edmund," the witch told him warningly.

"Hello," Edmund managed, in his Narnian accent.

Jadis gave him a tight smirk. "Now drop the accent."

"Please..." he begged. If only he could spare Lucy this misery, of knowing his real voice, of knowing that he had been with her for a large portion of the journey.

"Speak properly, and do so at _once_."

"I'm sorry," said Edmund, his accent reverting to Charnian.

"My Wolf..." Lucy realized, her chin quivering violently. "Oh, Aslan!"

"Lucy," croaked Edmund hoarsely, "please forgive me, I never meant-"

"You...you led me here," Lucy said, her voice more hurt than it was directly accusing but containing a faint ring of an accusatory undertone nonetheless.

"No, I didn't, I tried-" Edmund began. It wasn't fair! He didn't lead her here! He didn't want her here! He had done everything- _everything_!-to keep her from coming, but she was so stubborn and big-hearted and she wouldn't stop. She just wouldn't stop.

Lucy couldn't believe it. Here she had come all this way to rescue him, and he had been with her all along! She didn't have to come-she could have taken the wolf back to the mansion with her and accomplished what she set out to do. And yet Edmund hadn't even told her who he was, all that time...

"Of course he led you here," Jadis laughed bitterly. "That's his _job_. I already explained it to you. Are you really that stupid?"

Her nose turned red and her face was awash with tears. Yes, she had been that stupid; because she loved him and had wanted to help him. And even though she believed he had never really loved her in return, she'd managed to convince herself that he had cared, had honestly liked her, at least a little. _All_ of it was a lie, not just their betrothal. If she hadn't been the mostly-mortal daughter of Coriakin, if he hadn't been the servant of a witch, would he have even bothered to speak to her again after their first meeting at the village fair?

"What do you want with demistars anyway?" Lucy asked the witch brokenly. "Why does he-" She stopped and gave Edmund another horrified pain-filled glance before her eyes flickered back to Jadis. "Why does he lead us to you?"

"Your blood is special," the witch explained, pointing at her with her index and middle fingers pressed together. "When it is spilled out on the magical stone of which my stone table is made, it gives me power and strength.

"When I was in my first youth, I ate an apple, but it was no ordinary apple. It was a special fruit with dark juice and silver skin and leaves. Enchanted food of the eldest of the full-blooded stars in the heavens. A Heaven's Apple, such a thing is often called. It gave me eternity and enhanced the magic I already had in my veins from my enchantress bloodline.

"I made myself a queen. Can you imagine a queen who never died? You, you were almost a queen yourself, could you fathom what it would be like to hold onto your country for ever, no need for a successor, just your command, for always?"

Lucy frowned contemptuously. Personally, she didn't think she would want to be queen for ever; she thought she would rather die when she was supposed to, instead of living on to see everybody she cared about disappear from the world. Obviously, though, such a thought never bothered-or even occurred to-Jadis of Charn, for the only living being she cared about was herself.

"Anyway," Jadis went on, "there was one little flaw with the apple. Its power within me needed to be renewed. It took a decade, and I aged far more than I have before or since then, but I figured out the way to do it. Nothing happened with the full-blooded children of the stars I killed. I tried everything, eating their hearts, drinking their blood, finally even spilling their blood on the stone table. It all failed, though the last one came close-and I knew I was nearer to my answer with it."

Lucy wanted to vomit, she felt herself swaying involuntarily, dizzily. _Those poor,_ _poor stars..._

"And then I realized only a half-blooded star could fully restore me. Each time, I grew more powerful. Not only that, but their livers turned out to be far better than that of animals when it came to spells and divination. A great deal of use to me."

Disgusted, Lucy moved away from the witch and took a step closer to where Edmund was still standing. "You knew...you knew about all of this?"

Edmund's lips trembled. "Yes." More or less, he had.

"Of course he did," Jadis scoffed, rolling her eyes. "He's done this plenty of times before." She snapped her fingers. "I've had enough of this. You're going to the dungeon till tomorrow when I kill you."

A number of tallish men in white velvet came out from a nearby antechamber. Edmund had seen them plenty of times before but never bothered to speak to them. He knew better. They weren't even really human-barely deserving to be called _men_ at all-they were a smaller breed of the witch's own crew. They served her because she was most powerful and could lay such spells on them that blocks of ice would encase their feet when they laid down and fire would burn their legs and bottoms when they sat down if they crossed her; in fact, the only reason they were even still alive was because of her continuous spells, otherwise their lifespans would have long ago been over. Should they ever have stopped serving her, they would have ceased to be. If there had ever been a part of any of them that had a will of its own, it had vanished long before the witch's Traitors had come into the picture of life at the ice castle. Frankly, Edmund wasn't even sure any of them _could_ speak at all; he'd never heard them talk, not even amongst themselves, and when Jadis told them to do a thing, they simply nodded, never saying a word. He had never seen their lips so much as twitch, never-mind actually move.

These tall figures, standing stiffly and expressionlessly in their white velvet garments, grabbed Lucy by the arms and torso and started hauling her away.

This in itself was painful enough, but what absolutely _killed_ Edmund was hearing what Lucy was screaming as they dragged her forcibly out of the room and down the nearest stairs.

"How could you betray me like that!" she cried incredulously.

Edmund couldn't make himself stop crying. The fresh tears made the irritation caused by his earlier bouts of sobbing even worse, smarting like salt in a deep paper-cut, and the quickly disappearing image of a horrified, frightened, hurt, and utterly betrayed Lucy blurred before his watering eyes.

"You've done outstandingly," Jadis said to her favorite traitor in a condensing tone. "Why don't you take a bow?" He didn't flinch. "A _bow_ , Edmund."

He took a small, brief bow, only to appease Jadis who he knew was capable of jabbing him in the ribs with her wand or pulling his ear clean off his head if he disobeyed her even in a small matter.

Funny to think that he had been, all this time, trying to disobey her in a _large_ matter and it had circled round and still gone her way in spite of his best efforts. Maybe that's what she had planned all along; perhaps Jadis really did know him a little better than he believed her to, maybe she knew the whole time that, not only would he fall for Lucy, he'd try to save her as well. If she had known, she would have taken measures early on to ensure his failure.

But had she taken into account his unplanned meeting with the man who sired him? Had she taken into account the chance that Edmund might very well do what he suggested, spilling his own blood on the stone table when the time came?

When Lucy was completely out of sight and her muffled anguished little cries and screams (at least what could be heard of them from the throne room) had stopped, Jadis told Edmund to leave her sight.

He stepped down from the dais, swallowing at a bulging lump in his throat, but then, less than three feet away from it, he stopped.

"Let me sit with her," said Edmund suddenly, slowly turning round, the lump dissolving just enough so that a sliver of his voice could return. "In the dungeon, I mean."

Jadis arched an eyebrow at him. "Why, Edmund Maugrim, this is certainly a first." She seemed somewhere between amused and annoyed. He always avoided the demistars after they came in and learned how they'd been betrayed; never before had he asked to visit-or sit with-one.

"Take me to her," he said, a little more forcefully.

"Well, well." Jadis curled her fingers on the ice-carved arm of her throne. "Look who thinks he can give the orders. You're not free _yet_ , Edmund. Remember that."

His father was right, he thought darkly; she was definitely going to make him watch this time.

Really, he knew he shouldn't have been the least bit surprised. What better finale could the witch think up than having her best Traitor go stark raving mad after being forced to witness the death of the person he loved most? She knew seeing _any_ half-blood star killed would have a bad effect on him; seeing Lucy, who he would have done anything-absolutely anything-to save, die on the stone table, would utterly destroy him. And all this time she had allowed him-in not forcing him to watch the deaths of those that came before Lucy P. Ramandu-to desensitize himself to what he had been doing, not out of any queer sort of kindness, but rather so that it would be even more traumatic when the moment came.

He couldn't possibly truly imagine how bad it would be.

But, in the same way, she would be putting him-unwittingly-in the easiest position to save the demistar this time around; if he could break free from whatever held him back and make himself bleed on the table.

Unless, of course, the man who sired him was _wrong_. Or simply lying. In which case, all would be lost.

The thought almost made him not want to try it, but Edmund refused to let doubts lessen his resolve. All would be lost _anyway_ -at least this was something resembling a faint glimmer of hope.

"Please," said Edmund, through a clenched jaw. He figured Lucy probably wouldn't want to see him, not after what happened, but he had to be near her. He couldn't spend all night thinking about her alone in that dungeon. Guiltily, he thought of all those before her who had been alone while he sat numbly in his quarters, staring at the wall, forcing his mind to think of something else, to forget about the life he had ruined and ended. He had to right that wrong-with Lucy.

"You really are taken with this one, aren't you?" sneered Jadis.

The question was so obviously rhetorical. Edmund didn't reply.

"Fine," she said. "You want her? I'll have you escorted down there and you can keep her _company_ all you want. But have her tonight, Edmund, because tomorrow, she's mine."

Edmund felt sick. He wasn't sure what to read into the witch's cruel words. She was playing with him, like she always did, tormenting him as a cat did with a mouse before it ripped it open, letting it die ever so slowly. But could she really mean those words in the most vulgar way they could be taken? Well, she had known his father, and she thought-because of his lie to protect Ammi and Paddy-that he was just like him. The emphasis on 'company' implied this, too. It really didn't matter _what_ the witch meant, though. He wasn't going to hurt Lucy, and neither was she. Jadis was _not_ going to kill her.

"Over my dead body," Edmund said after a pause, staring into the witch's face with a glare as hard as stone.

She only laughed. He was no threat to her. It was rather sad, really, how desperate he seemed.

"Literally," he muttered under his breath (Jadis didn't hear that).

Jadis signaled for her servants in white velvet again. "Take this traitor to the dungeon and put him in with the girl."

They grabbed him and started tugging, as if they expected him to resist same as she had.

"There's no need to choke me," Edmund practically spat at them when they pulled his jerkin so that the collar dug into the side of his neck too tightly, nearly blocking the flow of air in his throat. "I'm coming _willingly_ , you dunderheads!" It was the first thing he'd ever said to these idiots, the first words he'd ever had reason to address them with.

Confused but nonetheless getting the hint that he wasn't going to fight them or try to run, one of them lightly grabbed onto his right arm and another grabbed his left, like they were leading him in a dance of some kind, and they escorted him down to the dungeon.

A door made of steel bars was swung open and Edmund was thrown into it with a rough heave that reminded him of being tossed outside of a tavern. He landed flat on his stomach and face.

The door clicked shut and locked behind him, but he didn't care, this was what he wanted. He needed to talk to her. This time, he needed to explain. Up till now, he would have been happy to leave her in semi-ignorance, if only she'd never come here, never had to know, but Jadis had revealed to her what he was. If Lucy would listen, this might be his only chance to explain in his own words and not the witch's. Tomorrow would be too late. Because, whatever happened, one of them would be dead by the end of it.

And with any luck, it would be _him_ , the White Witch's power would be gone for ever, and Lucy could go home.

Only, having a conversation with Lucy was not going to be as simple in practice as in theory. She was sitting in a pile of frost-covered straw with her knees pulled to her chest and her eyes closed. She didn't even look up when the door was opened and then shut again.

He cleared his throat to alert her to his presence there.

She whimpered and didn't move or open her eyes. "Go away."

"I can't, Lu, they locked the door. I'm here with you until they come and let me out." He stood up and took a few steps closer to her.

Lucy trembled violently. "Leave me alone."

"Lucy." Edmund stretched out his arm and put his hand on her shoulder.

Gasping, Lucy finally opened her eyes and reacted to him. She reached into her pack (which had been tossed into the dungeon with her) and fumbled for the dagger with Aslan's head on it. She unsheathed it, scooted away from Edmund's grasp, and held it warningly. "Don't touch me."

She was angrier than he had ever seen her, but Edmund didn't think, even for a second, that she would actually use the dagger on him.

He was dead wrong. When he reached for her again, she stabbed him in the arm.

"Ow!" cried Edmund, pressing his opposite hand over the fresh wound she had just given him. It hadn't been a brutal puncture, only a nick, but it still hurt, and in more ways than one.

"Stay away from me," she said again, her shaking hand still gripping the hilt.

He was stunned. The expression on her face was only _partly_ anger. And it wasn't her anger that had made her prick him in the arm with the dagger; it was _fear_. She was afraid of him. Her whole face was pale with terror.

She had every right not to trust him, of course. After all, he had been setting her up for constant betrayals from the first, and now she knew why. She knew who he has been working for this entire time.

But, even so, this new personal fear of him was almost too much to bear. Could she really believe he _wanted_ her to be here, in the witch's dungeon? Didn't she doubt it, even a little?

He sat down, a good distance away from her. "I'm sorry."

"And that makes it all right, does it?" Lucy grunted, wiping her nose with the back of her wrist.

"You shouldn't have come," said Edmund weakly.

"So now it's _my_ fault you lied to me and brought me here?"

"I didn't bring you here," he said. "I tried to stop you from coming."

"When you were the wolf, you were making sure I got here," she accused him. "That's why you protected me and stuck by me, isn't it? So you could deliver me to the witch in one piece?"

"No!" cried Edmund. "Lucy, how can you even _think_ that?"

"Because it's true," she sobbed.

"It is not!" he insisted vehemently. "Do you honestly think I tried to knock that compass out of your hands because I _wanted_ you to know how to get here?"

"I don't know," she wept. "And I don't care, either." That wasn't entirely true. She said she didn't care because, deep down, she _did_ care, and she knew. She knew the moment those words died on his lips. He had been trying to stop her, but she hadn't let him.

"I didn't want her to hurt you," he whispered brokenly. "I didn't want anyone to hurt you. I still don't. I would do anything if..."

"What about the others, Edmund?" she asked sharply.

"What others?"

"The girls before me," Lucy pressed. "Did you try to save them?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Why not?"

"I was...scared..."

"That's a really bad excuse, Edmund."

"The only other one I have is even worse."

"What is it?"

"I was selfish. I wanted so badly to get my own freedom that-"

"You were willing to let them die for you," Lucy finished bluntly.

"You have to understand that I never let myself think about it that way," Edmund said softly. "Not until you."

"Eustace...Tumnus...Ammi..." Lucy wanted to know. "Them too?"

"Yes," he confessed. "They're Traitors, too. Well, Eustace and Ammi are, anyway. Tumnus is our mentor."

Lucy shuddered. "Mentor?"

"He tells us-usually me-what to say."

"Did he tell you what to say to me?"

"Yeah, of course, but I didn't listen."

"Why not?"

"Well, I liked talking to you as myself."

"Which self? The nice person who visited my family's mansion, or somebody else?"

"What accent am I using right now?"

She concentrated; she hadn't been paying attention up till he asked her that. "Narnian," she realized.

"More than anything, I wanted to be the person who was with your family all that time, the one who..." His voice trailed off and he shook his head. "But it couldn't last."

"But it _is_ fake, isn't it?" Lucy inquired. "The accent, the way you acted, the fact that you...that I thought you..." She brushed the back of her hand against her eyes. "It was all fake. An act. _You_ were fake."

"You think I'm fake?" echoed Edmund dismally.

Lucy nodded. "It's the only part of you I got to know, and it wasn't real. So what else could it be, Ed?" She didn't say the words meanly, not even sharply, but she said them without even the slightest hesitation in her voice.

"Well, what would be real?" Edmund pointed out, his voice shaking borderline hysterically. "If I...If I went around talking like..." He changed his accent. "Like this; like a bloody Charnian thug. All the time? If I told everyone I met that I've betrayed so many people I can barely keep count so they should just stay away from me? If I wore a big sign that said my mother didn't want me and I was forced to serve a sadistic witch almost my entire life? Would you have even believed me if I'd told you how I really got those whip-marks on my back?"

"The witch did that to you," Lucy now understood.

He nodded. "She was punishing me for inconveniencing her."

"What did you do?"

"Well, remember Paddy?"

"Oh." She didn't ask anything else about that.

"Yeah," said Edmund pointedly.

"What you went through is ghastly," said Lucy, "but it doesn't change that what you did-hurting all those girls-was wrong. Did you ever think about their families, about the time they spent in this dungeon? Before they...before they..." She couldn't finish.

"There had to be a first time," he faltered.

"A first time to do the right thing?"

"Yes." He looked very hard at her. "Just like you did, Lu, when you saw me in that net and saved me from those hunters. How could I hurt you after what you did for me?"

"That's right," Lucy noted, closing her eyes and sighing. "If you're My Wolf, that boy in the net would have been you, too."

"You have no idea how many times I wanted to tell you," he said.

It was then that Lucy, calmer now, took in the fresh blood staining Edmund's sleeve. "I'm sorry."

Edmund blinked at her in disbelief. Wasn't that _his_ line? He had barely even been thinking about the blood on his arm. He could feel it clotting, so it wasn't as if he was going to bleed to death or anything, and as far as he was concerned he thought he deserved it, for all he'd done.

What she said next made him want to lay down in the ice-encased straw and cry until dawn broke over Charn and somebody came and hauled him out of this dungeon.

This precious girl, who, thanks to him, had been cold, miserable, betrayed, frightened, attacked, emotionally torn to shreds, and put in a dungeon to await a brutal death, seriously, no joke, asked him to forgive her.

"Lucy," he croaked out, sobbing uncontrollably.

She put her arms around him, letting him do the same to her, the dagger safely back in its sheath where it belonged.

And they stayed like that, the two of them clinging to each other like survivors of a violent shipwreck, for a long time.


	34. Traitor's Blood

Edmund sat on the creaky, hard, pathetic excuse for a bed in his part of the Traitor's quarters and looked at the cracked ice-encased wall across from him, waiting.

When the gray morning peppered with howling snow-blowing winds had dawned over Charn, the servants in white velvet had come and taken him away from Lucy. He would have put up more resistance but for the fact that he believed the witch was going to make him be in the room when she killed the last demistar he would ever bring to her. He would be seeing her again soon, in a couple of hours tops. And it would, he was sure, be the last time.

One way or another, whoever succeeded in their plans today-good or evil, himself or the witch-either he or Lucy, or both, were goners.

He thought about what Lucy had said to him, her last consoling whisper in his ear through the bars of the steel door he had, by then, been forced onto the opposite side of.

She had murmured, "I came here because I thought you were in danger and needed my help."

"I know," he had blurted quickly, about to apologize again.

She shook her head. "You know what I just realized, Ed?"

"What?" he'd breathed, his voice barely audible.

"Nothing's changed." She had smiled shakily at him, tears in her eyes, some of them frozen in the corners like translucent sleepies. "Not really."

"Oh, Lucy..."

"Here." She had then stuck her fingers between the bars, holding out the dagger with Aslan's head on it. "This belongs with you."

"No..." As far as he was concerned, she needed any protection it offered far more than he did.

"It's yours."

"I left it with you, Lu. It was a gift."

"I like seeing you with it, remember?"

"Still?" He couldn't help finding that a little hard to believe.

She nodded. "Take it." When he didn't immediately wrap his fingers around the sheath and pull it through the bars, she'd added, "For _me_ , Ed? Please?"

The door creaked, then swung, open, jolting Edmund out of his thoughts. He straightened his back (which felt particularly sore this morning) and craned his neck, expecting it to be the witch and some of her servants come to fetch him, surprised beyond all reason when a tired-looking, red-haired girl entered instead.

"Knock, knock," she said dryly.

"Ammi?" he blurted, standing up in a hurry and nearly choking on his own spit. "What in Aslan's name are you doing here?"

"I came for the buffet," she snipped sarcastically. "Why do you _think_ I'm here?"

In spite of the stress he was under, Edmund felt the corners of his mouth turning up into a light smirk. "You came after me."

"Brilliant," she snarled.

"I don't _believe_ it." Edmund folded his arms across his chest. "You actually care about what happens to me."

"I most certainly do not," she lied, her face reddening slightly.

"Whatever you say, Princess." He raised his chin smugly.

"For your information," said Ammi huffily, "I only came along to make sure Eustace didn't mess things up so badly along the way that Tumnus couldn't get here and safe your sorry hide. Well, that, and you're the only one I could ever teach to pick pockets properly, so I guessed, in your absence, they were going to need my skills."

Edmund sighed. "Forget it. Look, I know this is the part where I'm supposed to be mad that you stole the yellow ring and ruined the whole 'pulling away from witchcraft' plan, and I'll tell you you're a bloody moron, if you like, but..." His voice trailed off, then picked back up. "But, truth is, I'm glad you came. Something's happened. Lucy...she came after me and I...I couldn't stop her..."

Ammi shrugged her shoulders dejectedly. "I know."

"Did Jadis tell you when you came in?"

She shook her head. "No. Honestly, I'm not even sure Jadis knows we came back-or if she cares. This one's all about _you_ , Edmund."

"Yeah," said Edmund grimly; "me. Fortunate favorite of the queen." He sighed again and added, "Or else, not so fortunate."

"We found out from Ginarrbrick," Ammi explained. "We captured him along the way."

"I see."

"Edmund, we..." She looked down at her feet. "We also met your...your..."

"My father?" he finished, breaking a large crack into the thick emotional ice that had been encased over the topic for years.

"Yes, him."

"Did he tell you what he told me?"

She nodded. "About blood on the stone table...?"

"I'm going to do it, you know."

"I know," said Ammi, swallowing hard. "I knew from the moment he told us. You'll stop at nothing to save her."

"What makes you so sure?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Well, you were willing to kiss me to protect her," she half-teased. "If that's not dedication, I don't know what is."

Edmund chuckled at that, laughing a little harder than he meant to and having to look away to regain control of himself.

"No, seriously," continued Ammi, in a tone he had rarely ever heard her use, "I knew because that's what you _do_ , Edmund. You rescue damsels in distress, you always kick up a blasted fuss about doing the right thing, and you're so dashed handy with a sword. You don't leave girls hanging out to dry."

"Tell that to the other demistars," he whispered darkly, closing his eyes.

"Edmund," she said softly. "Look at me."

He opened his eyes again, moisture floating round in the corners of them. "What?"

"You need to forgive yourself for that," Ammi told him. "It was all about survival. You're not a monster. We all did things we aren't proud of. Tumnus, Eustace, you, me, all four of us." She looked away for a moment, breaking eye-contact with him and biting her lower lip. "I let some stupid, selfish, unfeeling boy into my life because I wanted to believe he could love me. I was practically scared to death by the results of my stupidity. Don't you think I regret that every single day that goes by? Don't you think I hate myself for the fact that I couldn't make myself love Paddy like I should have? But you...you did what a weaker man couldn't have. You saved me, you saved Paddy, you took the weight of _everything_ on your shoulders. You know what you are, don't you?"

"Incredibly stupid?" guessed Edmund brusquely. He didn't have the strength to cry anymore, he needed to speak roughly so that he didn't let another sob out of his throat.

Ammi waved that off. "No. You're exactly what you've wanted to be all this time; a knight. A true knight, Ed, that's what you are. You didn't need some fancy statement from Cair Paravel to prove that; you never did."

"Ammi-" his voice cracked.

"And in case this is it," Ammi cut him off before he could start blubbing, "I want you to know I always thought of Paddy as our son, yours and mine." She had never acted like she did, but deep down she always had; Paddy may have been sired by somebody else, but Edmund would always be the first true father that baby ever had in his life, and he would always be the closest thing Ammi would ever know to a protector and a provider.

"Me too," said Edmund softly.

"And, Edmund, I-" but she never finished what she started to say, because Tumnus and Eustace walked in at that very moment.

"Edmund, I'm so sorry," said Tumnus by way of greeting. "I failed you."

"No, old chap." Edmund reached out and put his hand on the faun's shoulder. "No. You did your darnest. Now it's time for me to do mine."

"You're not really going to do as he suggested...?" Tumnus paled. "Edmund, he's half-mad. If he's wrong and the witch..."

"It doesn't matter," said Edmund, forcing his tone of voice into an unwavering firmness. "Not now." He held up the dagger Lucy had returned to him. "I guess it's about time I put this thing to good use anyway."

"What are you doing in here, then?" Tumnus asked next.

"What do you mean?"

"If the witch is going to kill Lucy in front of you, shouldn't you actually be _in_ the room with the stone table?"

"She's going to come and get me," Edmund said knowingly.

Eustace voiced an understandable fear. "What if you're wrong and she's not coming? What if she just goes ahead and..." He faltered sightly. "She might, you know."

"No." Edmund felt oddly convinced this was not the case. "Jadis will come. If I'm right, she'll come to fetch me personally. She wants me to suffer as much as possible."

Sure enough, less than five minutes later, the witch arrived with her white velvet-clad servants. Dragged behind them, her wrists in shackles, was Lucy.

"Come, Edmund," smirked Jadis, speaking in a cold 'you-jump-when-I-say-jump' tone of voice that made it perfectly clear this was _not_ a request. "It's time you saw the fruits of your labor after all your years working for me."

Tumnus and Eustace looked at Lucy sadly. Tumnus lowered his head; Eustace goggled helplessly at her as if he wanted very badly to say something, something practical and encouraging, but couldn't find the right words in time.

"Tumnus?" said Ammi, breaking the silence that followed once Lucy, Edmund, and Jadis were out of sight.

"Yes?"

"Do you still have that bow you used for hunting small game?" she wanted to know.

Tumnus wasn't an expert archer, exactly, certainly nothing even close to being up to par with either of Coriakin Ramandu's daughters, but he _could_ presumably use a bow if he absolutely had to, and occasionally he even had an emergency set of arrows on hand in case some rare game with actual meat on its bones wandered into the queen's dominion. He and the traitors he mentored would have a feast if by pure dumb luck he was able to kill it. Six times out of ten there were no animals in the barren wasteland truly worth hunting and eating, five times out of those slim opportunities he didn't have his arrows readily available, and four out of _those_ he was likely to miss the shot. But that didn't matter; it wasn't petty game-animal pelts and fresh meat-Ammi had on her mind when she asked the question. Indeed, she didn't plan to use the bow herself; it was going to be for somebody else-somebody she knew could shoot, and-unlike Tumnus-wasn't likely to miss.

"Yes," Tumnus answered offhandedly. "Why do you ask?"

"Arrows?" Ammi asked.

"Some."

"How many?"

Tumnus thought for a moment. "Only three, I think. I hid them in a chest with a cracked lid last time I was here."

"Good," she said hurriedly. "Get them out and give them to me-all three of them."

"What are you going to do?" Eustace demanded, looking wary.

"Don't worry about it," she told him. "Tumnus, _now_ , if you don't mind. It's urgent."

"Ammi, you're not planning anything..." He paused, considering his words. "Unorthodox?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, yes, because everything else we did this time around was _perfectly_ orthodox." Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

"Good point," Tumnus conceded.

"Where's that chest?" she insisted.

"I put it under Edmund's bed, I think." He got down on his goat-knees and crawled halfway under the unstable piece of worthless wood and metal that could barely be called 'furniture', none too sure it wasn't going to fall in and come crashing down on his head.

Fortunately, it didn't, and he emerged dragging out the chest with the split lid.

Opening the old chest, there was a sharp creak, and before Tumnus could so much as blow the layer of frozen dust off the edges, Ammi had thrust her hands inside and snatched up the bow and arrows.

She prepared to make a run for the door but then noticed something silver twinkling in the corner of the chest.

If it was what she thought it was, it might be useful.

"A silver flask?" she said aloud, her voice high-pitched with speed. Though she had forced her body to slow down, her mind and tongue felt like they had already going a thousand miles a minute; it was a wonder those three words didn't all slur together into one.

"It was Edmund's father's," Tumnus managed, queer as it felt saying something like that almost lightly, as if it didn't hold any greater meaning or taboo, as if Edmund's father hadn't picked it up on the first mission after Mabel's death. Not that the last bit would mean too much to _these_ Traitors; they knew little to nothing about Mabel by name. "He used this chest when he was here, to keep his clothing and other belongings in, when he left I..."

Ammi bobbed her head up and down in a rabid nod. "I'm taking this, too." She really did run for the door this time, the small flask, three crude yet sharp arrows, and sleek, dark-wood bow in hand.

"It's empty!" the faun called after her warningly.

"That's all right!" she shouted back over her shoulder.

"Scared?" Tumnus asked Eustace out of the corner of his mouth.

"No," snorted Eustace, his voice laced with weak indignation. Then, in a smaller voice, "I'm absolutely terrified."

The room in which the stone table was kept was dark and would have been pitch-black if not for the dim red light that came from the long rectangular stone fire-holder that ran the length of the four large, oddly-shaped walls. Occasional flickers of green sparks would shoot off but only at the most unexpected of moments, and they never seemed to make any of the ice within melt enough to drip even a single drop of water.

The stone table itself was large and shaped like a perfect gray square. There were marks-runes, maybe-and strange symbols carved deep enough for a normal-sized person's pinky-finger to be pushed all the way into the carved gaps all around the sides. The middle of the table, where Lucy would surely be placed (if you could truly refer to a rough heave and toss as _placing_ ), was perfectly smooth without a single crack to mar it.

Edmund felt extremely panicky when he realized the servants in white velvet were not going to let go of his arms at all until _after_ Lucy was killed and he couldn't get at the dagger, the sheath of which was now strapped to a belt haphazardly fastened to his waist. How was he going to make himself bleed? Should he try to break his own nose by smashing it against the stone? Couldn't the old adage 'like father, like son' work _in_ his bloody favor for once?

He watched as Lucy was hurled onto the centre of the table like she was naught but a sack of flour. Her hip obviously hurt her a little upon impact, and Edmund could see her trying to feel it with her hand to figure out how badly it was bruised, but before she could reach it, one of the velvet-clad servants who wasn't busy holding him back grabbed both her wrists and started unlocking the shackles.

She swung her fist at him the second her hands were free, only he pulled back, cradling the empty shackles he'd just removed, before her clenched fingers could actually strike the side of his face. The lower part of her legs felt funny, more restricted somehow.

When Lucy had first been dragged out of the dungeon and had those shackles slapped on, she had tied her deerskin pack to her waist. Before throwing her onto the table, the witch's servants had ripped it off and dropped it in a pathetic heap on the floor. There came the noise of scuffling near where the pack had been discarded, and Edmund hadn't been able to stop himself from craning his neck and peeking over to see if it was being looted.

It turned out to be Ammi, putting a bow and three arrows 'casually' down on top of the pack. He hadn't heard her come in, but the second he noticed her she seemed to know it and nodded at him.

Edmund didn't have the foggiest idea what Ammi meant for him to do with those; he was no archer.

Rolling her eyes, as if annoyed that he was too dense to figure it out, she came up to him holding out a little silver flask.

It was kind of old-looking, even tarnished in a few places, and he wondered where the devil she'd gotten it from.

She coughed pointedly, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Catching on, Edmund frowned at the velvet-clad servant closest to him and snapped, "Do you mind?" His pupils sliding over to the flask as if he wanted a quick drink.

They let go of his arms, shrugging.

Ammi put the flask in his hand, then stepped between him and the witch's servants who had been holding onto him up till that moment.

The flask in his hands had nothing in it; it felt too light for that. And suddenly he understood. It was a decoy. Ammi was using it to get the servants to let him go.

Meanwhile, the witch had stepped up onto the stone table behind Lucy's back, holding the knife of stone that had killed countless demistars before her.

Lucy gasped and twisted round, staring at the White Witch's raised hand, wide-eyed. What now? Could she grab onto the witch's wrist as it came down? Or would the witch thrust the knife down into her flesh too quickly for her to try it?

Edmund flung the silver flask aside; it made a clattering sound against the wall. Then, in one smooth motion, he ran forward and unsheathed his dagger, closing his fingers on his right hand tightly round Aslan's carved golden head and dragging the blade along the palm of his left, making a long, clean, very bloody, slash.

Jadis screamed for her servants to catch him, but he already had a head start.

Lucy tried to scoot further away from the witch, though she couldn't get passed her and off the table. Besides, even if she _could_ get off, they'd bound her feet together with strong cords while she was distracted by one of them removing her shackles, which was why her lower legs had suddenly felt restricted. Her eyes kept flickering over to Edmund's bleeding hand. What was he _doing_?

When a servant in white velvet got too close to Edmund, about to tackle him from behind, Ammi kicked him back.

Tumnus and Eustace suddenly ran in, watching the unfolding struggle with nearly as much bewilderment as poor Lucy.

Nothing else for it, Tumnus used his goat-hooves to kick one of the witch's servants in the shins. Eustace tried to punch one of them in the face but accomplished little more than injuring (and splitting open three of) his own knuckles.

Edmund climbed onto the stone table, using only his elbows to pull himself up, holding the hand with the blood-filled cut out warningly. If Jadis made one false move, down onto the stone it would go.

"Get _down_ ," Jadis hissed at him.

He lowered his hand. "Certainly."

"Stop!"

He stopped lowering his hand, careful not to let the blood drip onto the table just yet, going over to Lucy and slicing through the cords that tied her feet and rendered them useless as hastily as he could without accidentally nicking her ankles. "Lucy, get out of here." If he was going to die now, no way around it, he didn't want her to see it happen.

She stood up shakily, almost falling down as her knees buckled, slightly unstable on the raised stone, and hopped down off the table as he ordered, but she refused to leave the room.

"Lucy, dash it!" Edmund shouted. "Leave! _Now_!"

"It doesn't matter if she _does_ try to listen to you, Edmund," hissed Jadis. "She's not getting out of this room, and I am going to teach you such a lesson that everything else I've ever done to you will have felt like a gentle pat on the back by comparison." She reached out and tried to grab onto the wrist of his bleeding hand like she intended to twist it clean off.

He moved quickly and tried to stab the witch's hand as it came towards him. He knew how fast she was, he had the advantage of knowing not to hesitate for even a fraction of a half-second.

Lucy noticed the bow and arrows Ammi had left on top of her pack. She started running for them. A servant in white almost stopped her, but after a short tussle and some help from Tumnus, she got passed him and was able to make a grab for the weapons.

It was then that Edmund realized how clever Ammi had really been. The bow and arrows had never been for _him_ ; she'd meant them for _Lucy_ , so she could defend herself, all along.

"Stay back," Edmund said, letting unclotted blood drip down from his hand, nothing to stop it.

"No!" screamed the witch, knowing that there was no where else for it to land but the table.

Unexpectedly, Ammi leapt forward and tackled Edmund from the side, and he rolled off the stone table, flying across the room and hitting his head on the black railing of the fire-holder, crumbling down onto the floor only half-conscious.

Lucy, who had been fitting an arrow into the bowstring, stopped and stared.

Everything felt as if it was in slow motion. There was blood from Edmund's hand splattered on the floor by the fire-holder, but none visible on the stone table.

Ammi, for her part, was now sprawled out on the stone table, panting for breath.

Jadis smiled in triumph. "Thank you, Ammi. I'm glad this stupid boy got to see what loyalty to the Queen of Charn really looks like."

The corners of Ammi's mouth turned up like she knew something the witch didn't.

"What are you smirking about?" Jadis ask-demanded, suddenly feeling light-headed.

Ammi lifted up her arm. It was covered in blood all the way from her wrist to her elbow; her own Traitor-blood, already smeared on the stone table.

Edmund, blinking at her in shock, still lying on the floor, his head throbbing, felt around for his dagger, ignoring the dark spots that fluttered in front of his eyes, discovering that she must have taken it from him when she tackled him-taken it, and used to it cut her own arm.

"Nooo!" shouted Jadis, her face going pale (not merely white, as it always was, but truly _pale_ ) as her power drained from her.

Lucy looked at Jadis, thought of all the demistars before her and of the whip-marks on Edmund's back, and prepared to take aim, raising the bow and pointing the arrow right at the witch's heart.

For one brief moment, a look not quite of remorse but definitely of calm acceptance of her fate came over the witch's face.

Lucy almost lost her nerve, but then she remembered her journey here-and the look on Edmund's face when Jadis revealed that he was a traitor-and, screwing up her courage, let the arrow fly.

That arrow never hit the witch's heart; Lucy, who's hands were shaking very badly, accidentally hit her directly in the throat instead.

The witch, drained of her power, started choking on her own blood, reaching up to pull the arrow out.

Lucy couldn't bear to watch anyone writhe about in slow fatal pain like this-evil witch or not-and quickly fired off a second arrow, this one hitting her in the forehead and killing her instantly.

She couldn't look at the dead witch; she wanted to vomit.

The servants in white velvet all sank down to their knees and crumbled into little piles of powdery white snow.

Edmund, finally getting his bearings and standing up, staggered over to the stone table. "Ammi, why did you do that?"

Her face was gray and her eyes half-closed. "You did so much for me, it was time I did something for you."

"The cut's not that bad," Edmund said hurriedly, making a motion as if to help her off the table. "We'll get you cleaned up and..."

"It's not the wound that's killing me," she whispered hoarsely. "It's the table. You'll all see in a minute, I'm sure. But it's over. The witch isn't coming back. You're free- _all_ of you. No more Traitors, no more missions."

"You were planning this," Edmund gulped, tears springing up into his eyes.

She sighed. "Prove it."

"You should have let me..."

"My life always seemed so meaningless, a series of mistakes and missions," Ammi told him, her weak expression growing peacefully distant. "I'm glad my death doesn't have to be."

"What about your family?" Edmund asked, sniffling involuntarily. "You wanted to find them."

"You can find them for me," Ammi decided.

Edmund didn't much like the idea of finding a bunch of random strangers and telling them that their daughter-or niece, or cousin, or whatever-had died saving him, but he promised anyway.

She motioned for him to lean his head closer to hers.

He did so.

"And you had _better_ marry Coriakin's daughter after this, or I swear I will find a way to come back from the dead and kick your sorry arse all the way from Narnia to Calormen and then back again."

This, Edmund knew, was Ammi's way of saying, "Be happy."

"I'll try," he promised.

She grunted and, reaching out, patted him roughly on the cheek. "So long, Ed."

"Goodbye, Ammi." He swallowed a sob.

She exhaled; her chest went down, but it didn't rise again to take another breath. She was right; it was over.

"Look!" cried Eustace, before a deafening _crack_ droned him out. "It's splitting in half!"

Under Ammi's now lifeless body, the stone table was cracking, breaking apart into two separate pieces.


	35. Tale of Two Cabins

After the stone table split in two, things started happening.

Cracks appeared in the walls and the fire in the fire-holder went out, thrusting Lucy, Eustace, Edmund, and Tumnus into darkness.

Edmund felt his feet harden and turn to gold again. He lost his balance and collapsed on the floor.

"I can't see anything," whispered Lucy. "Edmund, where are you?"

"Down here," he moaned, trying to scoot himself in the direction her voice was coming from, his gold feet scraping along the floor as he pulled them behind himself.

"Why did the fire go out?" Eustace wanted to know.

"It was magic," Tumnus reminded him wearily. "All of the White Witch's magic will be either disappearing or collapsing into itself. Which makes me think that perhaps this isn't the safest place for us to be. We can come back to the ruins later, if there's anything worth salvaging, but for now we had best get out of here."

"Where's the door?" Lucy thought aloud. She wished she could get at her pack and find the compass Aravir had given her, so it could light the way for them, but the room was large and she would never find it in time in this blackness. "Was it on the left side of this room, or the right? I can't remember."

"That's the worst of girls," chuckled Edmund. "You never carry a map in your heads."

"That's because our heads have something in them," Lucy retorted.

Tumnus chuckled anxiously. "Can we please just leave?"

"I might have some difficulty with that," Edmund confessed, cursing under his breath. "I, um, can't get up."

"Why not?" Lucy asked, her voice strained with mild panic. "Are you hurt?"

"Well," mumbled Edmund, embarrassed. "I'm kind of...that is, I'm..." His already barely audible voice got even lower. "Crippled."

"What was that, Cousin?" blurted Eustace rather tactlessly.

"I'm _crippled_ ," barked Edmund, raising his voice. "All right? I accidentally got my feet turned to solid gold. Jadis turned them back when I arrived here, but now..."

Lucy felt her stomach do a strange somersault and her cheeks grew oddly hot even though the room was more bitterly cold than ever now that the glowing red fire was gone.

"Lucy," said Tumnus, getting down on his goat-knees beside Edmund, "lend me a hand. I'll take one of his arms, you take the other, and we'll try to carry him out of here. Eustace, pick up his feet."

"Phew! This is _grueling_. These things are beyond heavy," Eustace commented, trying to lift up his cousin's feet on the faun's count of three.

"Shut up," sneered Edmund crossly, feeling like a pathetic invalid, having to be carried out of the castle like this.

Everything after that was a bit of a blur of scrambling and shivering. They made their way out of the room and-with less difficulty, because there was more light to see where they were going once they'd ducked under a few slowly crumbling archways-out of the witch's castle in its entirety. It was beyond cold and there wasn't much to say, all three of them felt rather overwhelmed by everything that had happened. So they sat with their backs to the crumbling castle and, in spite of the bitter low temperatures, managed to fall asleep, huddled together, leaning against each others' shoulders.

When they awoke a day later to a distantly rising stream of sunlight unable to push its way through a series of smokey gray clouds, Lucy saw something large, shaggy, and so golden that Edmund's feet barely looked brass-coloured in comparison.

"Look!" she cried, pointing.

But she need hardly have wasted her energy pointing, for they all knew at once what she was staring at in awe. It was hard to miss as the Lion, with his big, beautiful autumn-coloured mane and large, terrible (yet equally wonderful), velveted paws of creamy-smooth gold, was doused in pure sunlight in spite of the fact that the real sun, the one in the sky above Charn at that exact moment, still could not push through the impossibly thick overcast.

Lucy, unable to hold herself back a second longer, got up and ran to him, throwing her arms round him and kissing his muzzle and stroking his fur, running her cold, numb fingers in the warmth of his mane.

Eustace felt pretty foolish and swallowed hard, wondering how the Lion would like him; for he felt it keenly that Aslan knew he'd been, up till Ammi's sacrifice yesterday, a Traitor. Would he be punished? Swallowed whole for his cruelty and impertinence? He remembered every nasty thing he'd ever said in his life, and wondered, perhaps for the first time, if not everybody he turned his nose up at quite deserved it. This Lion, surely he would set him to rights. Although, whatever those 'rights' were mightn't be very pleasant.

As for Tumnus, his knees were knocking together and big, glistening tears that froze and stuck to his eyelashes appeared in his eyes. He was a Narnian; he knew better than to serve a witch, even when forced to. How foolish he had been to ever doubt Aslan or his power. And now he was certain Aslan meant to settle score with him.

Edmund was even more frightened than they were, his whole body felt like it was going to compress and cramp up until he couldn't so much as _breathe_ from a bad case of nerves. And yet he couldn't take his eyes off Aslan, all the same. He was too perfect-too good-too pure-for words. Of course Lucy would love and believe in Aslan. And of course this Lion had a country! He didn't doubt any of it now that he was seeing Him with his own eyes. The depiction on the dagger was well-made, of course, but it obviously hadn't done the real golden being it was modeled after justice.

To the faun's great surprise, when Aslan was done letting Lucy love up on him as a small kitten might to a big gentle dog it knows well and is fond of, he padded over to him and breathed his warm, comforting breath on him, soothing him. "Tumnus, have peace. Your transgressions are in the past and forgiven. Be a Narnian at rest." Turning to Eustace, he planted a soft lion-kiss on the puny boy's forehead. "You too are forgiven, child. Now you must find a new life and path for yourself."

Eustace suddenly felt strong and brave, even uncharacteristically adventurous; he saw, in his mind's eye, visions that, whatever his practical side had to say about it, might just come to pass after all: of returning to Narnia and finding Jill Pole again and-maybe, just _maybe_ -living happily ever after.

"Edmund," said Aslan, lowering himself closer to the ground so as to be eye-to-eye with him.

"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. "I'm sorry... For everything, Aslan."

"My dear son." He put his heavy paw down on one of Edmund's shoulders. "There is no need to speak of what is past. The price to end the evil has been paid by another, and thus it is all part of another's story, no longer your own-or that of Tumnus or your cousin Eustace. And no one is ever told any story other than their own. However, there _is_ a smaller price you will pay for what spills over of your former part in it."

Edmund was so overcome by the kindness in the golden, powerful voice that he almost broke down sobbing; as it was, his head spun and ice specks from unshed tears formed in his eyes. He felt protected, as he never had before in his life. He felt very strongly that whatever the price was, with the Lion's help, he would easily be able to pay it and move on with his life.

"Now, about your feet," said Aslan; and with that, he breathed on the hard gold and it began to soften.

Only, even when his feet turned a natural colour again and became flesh-and-bone though and through once more, they still hurt very badly. Edmund found he couldn't stand on them; they would not bear his weight; he was still crippled.

"The price left over is this," Aslan told him, "your feet will remain unusable one day for each year you served the queen. Then, all shall be as it should."

"Aslan, sir," Eustace ventured boldly, stepping forward. "What will we do for shelter now? We've never been anywhere here but the castle, really, and now it's in ruins."

"Ah," said Aslan, tossing back his mane and straightening back up to his full height. "I'm glad you asked. There is a place." He looked at Edmund. "You, your kinsman, and the star's daughter may ride on my back." Nodding at Tumnus, the Lion added, "The faun will be able to keep up; the snow and short travel will do his cloven hooves no harm."

With assistance from Tumnus, Edmund was the first on Aslan's back; Lucy was behind him, holding onto his waist, and Eustace was behind her, grasping her shoulders tightly to keep his balance.

The ride that followed was quite possibly the most glorious, pleasant thing that had ever happened in the country of Charn. Aslan's back was as cozy and soothing as a hot water bottle and all three of them felt quite snug. His paws made no noise on the snow as he dashed along, down paths unknown to the former Traitors, and the wind that slapped against their cheeks during the ride did not feel chill and biting, rather it felt delicious, like an autumn breeze in the northeast. Tumnus found he could indeed keep up, by some gift of Aslan, without having to stop to catch his breath; if he could have run like that for ever without getting tired, he probably would have wanted to do little else. Nothing could possibly compare.

But, of course, that glorious ride and run did come to an end. They stopped in a little snow-capped valley which must have been inhabited once, for there were remains of blackened frozen matchwood scattered round the higher places. And lower down, concealed by a few trees which seemed to be made of flexible gold and silver, bending in the wind as if bowing to the Lion, were two untouched cabins.

The cabins looked as if they had been built for royalty, the intricate and extravagant materials it was formed from made that abundantly clear, but what was most remarkable was that, although both buildings were obviously very old, made in a beautiful but grossly out-dated style, they were kept up in perfect repair. There wasn't so much as a stray twig on either of the well-swept, pebble-lined paths leading up to the door of each cabin.

Could somebody, Edmund wondered in amazement, really have lived here in such a fancy place without Jadis knowing about it and robbing them blind?

And yet there was not a single soul in sight. Nor were there any horses, or carriages, or servants; nothing of what you would expect. It made very little sense. All three of them felt quite baffled.

"What is this place?" asked Lucy at last.

"This valley, and other parts of the surrounding countryside, were once ruled by race of people not so very different from you Narnians," Aslan told them in a deep, grave voice. "Most of them were good, though some of them strived too much for deep power that did not concern them."

"What happened here?" Lucy said, looking nervous. "Where did they all go?"

"They died," sighed Aslan. "All of them. A long time ago. That is, _almost_ all of them. The last full-blooded human of their race died only yesterday. Now, in Narnia, there is a small infant who has half of this race in his blood."

Edmund closed his eyes and sighed deeply. "Ammi," he realized. "So her family's really been gone-for a long time. And she never knew." He knew he should probably have felt something like relief, as he no longer had to dread telling any relatives of her death, but instead he felt incredibly sad. So it was true, then. All that remained of the girl who had taught him to pick-pocket and steal sugar canes, in all of the world, was a little baby being raised by Lord Perry and Lady Alexander.

Lucy put her hand on his shoulder consolingly.

"I'm all right," he told her softly, leaning his cheek sideways against the back of her hand. "I'm fine, Lu. _Really_."

"But how did the cabins keep so clean in all this time?" Eustace blurted, his curiosity becoming too much for him to handle.

"I have kept the two cabins standing," said Aslan. "Because I knew, one day, they would be needed. I think you will find them both stocked with enough to keep all four of you warm and well-fed. Edmund, you will find that the Cabin on the right has a wheeled chair ready for your use."

He nodded. "Thank you, Aslan."

"I would not suggest traveling from Charn, my son, in your condition. You may do as you like, go where-ever you will, when you have healed completely. Till then, this is your home."

Edmund didn't doubt the wisdom of Aslan's command-suggestion. His feet did hurt quite a bit, and he had no desire to travel around in a bloody bath chair like he was a disabled old solider.

"You aren't leaving, are you?" Lucy asked Aslan when he dropped them off at the front door of the cabin on the right.

"Not yet, dear one," he assured her. "But sooner than any of you are. I've other countries to attend to. But I will be here a day or two more. Look for me tomorrow if you like, sweetheart."

Lucy kissed his soft yellow-gold muzzle again and, sighing to herself, opened the door.

Tumnus and Eustace helped Edmund inside while Lucy located the wheeled chair and brought it over to them. They lowered him into it and he nodded resignedly. This wasn't so bad as he thought. He couldn't get around as well as he would like, but it was only temporary. At least his feet weren't made of precious metal anymore; they would probably have weighed the chair down quite a bit if they were.

Now that Edmund was all set, they were free to look about the cabin and take it all in.

It was rather lovely. It wasn't so large as it looked from the outside, but it was every bit as grand. There were beautiful portraits of hunting parties in evergreen forests on the dark-wood walls, along with pretty silken tapestries.

The number of rooms was exactly three in total, but closer to two and a half since the third room was only a small box-shaped little kitchen with an iron stove and wooden cold-box. It was fairly narrow, but it was still wide enough for Edmund's chair to get in and out of without too much trouble, so that was all right. Then there was the bedroom, the largest room in the cabin. It had one large bed, a round table by a splendid bay-window, a full-length mirror, silver chamber pots, and a swinging silver lantern (dwarf-made, perhaps) hanging from the ceiling. The other room was a medium-sized receiving room which they had walked into upon entering by the front door. It had sofas, a few sand-coloured cabinets hung very close to the floor, and a dark blue carpet.

"Well, Eustace, Edmund," said Tumnus after he had seen all there was, "Lucy and I will leave you to settle in."

Edmund frowned. He hadn't realized the faun who had once been his mentor expected him to share this cabin with his cousin; he had, for some reason, gotten the idea in his head that Lucy would stay with him, and Tumnus and Eustace would take the other cabin.

As if reading his mind, Tumnus said, "Sorry, Ed, not happening."

"Why not?" Edmund, for lack of a better term, whined. "I'd rather share with Lucy than Useless." He looked over at his cousin. "No offense."

"None taken," said Eustace, his tone not particularly sincere.

"Yes, why not?" Lucy put in innocently. After going through all that trouble to find Edmund again, though it turned out he was with her almost all along as the wolf, she didn't want to leave his side if it could be avoided. She was just so glad to be near him again.

Tumnus cocked his head at them. "I think you know why not." He gave Edmund a stern, almost fatherly, look. "I know _you_ do." To Lucy, he added, "You, I have no idea what you know."

Lucy furrowed her brow, still not getting it.

Edmund scowled. "Oh, by the Lion, Tumnus! We're not going to do anything."

"Uh-huh," said Tumnus in a voice that had a distinctive ring of, 'says you'.

"We're _not_ ," Edmund insisted, exasperated.

"Not intentionally, but things happen, Ed." Tumnus knew they both had the most honourable of intentions, but after being separated for so long he wasn't entirely convinced they would stick to them as well as they should.

Lucy, who had finally caught on (better late than never), turned dark crimson. "We're _friends_ , Tumnus." After all, as far as she understood, the girl he loved had just died yesterday (she still didn't fully realize that his cheating on her had been a facade).

Eustace burst out laughing.

Edmund made a face at him; he was not amused.

"Sorry, Cousin." He regained control of himself. "That wasn't supposed to be out loud, I just couldn't help it."

Edmund rolled his eyes.

"Well, come along, Lucy," said Tumnus, heading for the door.

"Goodbye, Ed." She bent down and kissed him on the cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow."

The night that followed was very trying for both Eustace and Tumnus.

Eustace, tossing and turning in the bed (much to Edmund's annoyance), had been struggling to get comfortable, and he was finally in a fairly snug position, cocooned in the bed-clothes, when suddenly he felt someone shake his shoulder.

"Eustace."

"What?" he moaned. "You thirsty again?" He had had to get up and get Edmund a drink of water twice already.

"No," he said.

"Hungry?"

"No."

"Dying?"

"No."

"Then goodnight, Cousin."

"No, no wake up," Edmund insisted, shaking his shoulder again. "I need to talk."

"We never talk," Eustace pointed out groggily.

"I know, but there's no one else here."

"Ugh," groaned Eustace.

"What do you think Lucy meant when she said we were 'friends'?" Edmund pondered aloud.

"I think she meant you're friends," yawned Eustace, rubbing his eyes and sitting up.

"Do you think she doesn't love me anymore?"

"Are you on Toffee-Leaves again?" his cousin demanded impatiently.

"No!" he snapped. "Aslan! What's wrong with you?"

"Cousin, if she came all this way to save you, I think she loves you," Eustace told him, hoping to end the conversation.

"I know _that_." He waved it off. "I meant like she used to when we were betrothed. I was going to ask her to marry me, but... If she doesn't even..." His voice trailed off.

"That's a shame." Eustace put his head back down on the pillow. "Are we done?"

" _No_ ," growled Edmund. "I seem to recall having to listen to you go on and on about Jill Pole. The least you can do is listen to _my_ problem."

"Ah, _Jill_ ," said Eustace, his expression growing noticeably dreamy, even in the dark.

"Don't start talking about her _now_ ," moaned Edmund.

"Did I ever tell you-" began Eustace.

Edmund grabbed the blankets to change the subject. "Don't take all the covers, I've barely got any."

"Here, fine." Eustace let him have some.

"Good."

"Can we please sleep now?"

"Sure, why not?" sighed Edmund.

A few minutes later, Eustace was barely asleep when he heard, "So you really think she still loves me?"

Eustace whimpered and pressed his pillow against his ear. "Oh, what I wouldn't give to be deaf right now!"

And things weren't any quieter over in the cabin on the left, either.

Tumnus was half-asleep when a small voice said, "Mr. Tumnus?"

"Yes, Lucy?" he answered as patiently as he could manage.

Lucy was sitting up on her side of the bed, playing with the blankets, turning them into little hooded cloaks around her index and middle fingers. "I really do love Edmund, you know."

"I know," he said kindly, fighting against a heavy yawn. "Go to sleep."

"I really love him."

"I _know_ ," he said again, his voice more strained this time.

She looked at the window; it was a dark night, void of any moonlight or visible stars, the kind of night that made her feel very insignificant and quite alone in the world. "Mr. Tumnus?"

"Mmm?" he grunted.

"I love him," she said again.

"That's wonderful," moaned the faun, scrunching his eyelids tightly together. "I couldn't be happier for you. Goodnight, don't let the morning frost bite."

Lucy plopped down onto her back and lowered her head to her pillow, gazing up at the ceiling. "I really, really love him."

Tumnus muttered something under his breath about having heard her the first hundred times.

"Sorry," she said distantly, rolling over onto her side. "I can't sleep."

Tumnus got up, his hooves click-clacking on the floor. "I'm going to make myself something hot to drink."

"Why? I thought you were tired."

"Because now _I_ can't sleep either," he told her, a bit more gruffly than he meant to.

"I'll come with you," she decided, getting up. Something hot to drink might do her good, she thought.

When they both had a cups of hot tea in their hands, they sat on the sofas in the receiving room.

Lucy looked pensive, and Tumnus made the mistake of squinting over at her and asking what she was thinking.

"I really lov-"

"Never mind," he said quickly. "Just drink your tea." He was starting to think that perhaps he should have gone against his better judgment and just let them share the blasted cabin on the right like they wanted; at least he would have gotten peace and quiet.


	36. A Funeral and A Wedding

The morning of the funeral was very solemn. There almost hadn't been one at all, but Edmund was in favor of going through the ruins of the witch's castle, finding the things they left behind (such as Lucy's pack and his gold Aslan-head dagger) and Ammi's body so that she could have a proper send-off. Eustace didn't want to go near the castle, even in ruins, and Lucy was ashamed to admit, even though she wanted her things back and for Ammi to be sent off right, as she deserved for sacrificing her life for theirs, the witch's former dwelling still made her skin crawl. The smell of bad magic was gone from there now, but the smell of bad dungeon wasn't; nor were the lingering bad memories she imagined the place was even more swarmed with for the former traitors than for herself.

Aslan, when they asked him about what to do, agreed with Edmund's idea, and that settled it.

Tumnus used some extra lumber he got from cutting down a tree (it had been on the witch's side anyway and would have made trouble for them if they hadn't) to add onto the coracle Lucy came to Charn by means of until it was long enough to fit Ammi's corpse lying down and they made preparations for the funeral.

It wasn't much, in the end, but it was still worth something.

Eustace was nice enough to find an old book Ammi used for writing in (similar to the leather one Edmund had kept a record of demistar names in) and suggested putting it under her hand in the boat.

"It really ought to be flowers," Eustace commented. "But they don't exactly grow here, do they?" Only he felt uncomfortable picking up a dead hand to put the book under it, so Tumnus did it for him.

"Ammi wouldn't have wanted flowers anyway," said Edmund. "You know how she was." His fingers fiddled with an old yellowed piece of folded parchment he'd found in the castle ruins.

"What is that?" Tumnus asked him.

"Ammi's last will in testament, I think," he answered. It looked really old, like it had been written years ago, but it was all they had to go on. Unfolding it, he read what was written and chuckled. " _If anything ever happens to me_ ," he read out loud, " _for pity's sake don't have a big blubbering party, just light the bloody funeral pyre or kick the stupid boat out to sea or whatever and get on with your lives. And, Edmund, if there must be a speech, you give it. I think I can trust you not to make up a bunch of nice bull manure about me_." He shook his head and dropped the re-folded parchment down into his lap.

"Well, it sounds like her all right," Tumnus had to say.

"Sure does," sighed Edmund, folding the paper up again.

Eustace looked down at the corpse sadly. "She really was quite beautiful, wasn't she?"

"She was a princess," Edmund said softly; "they always are."

"She really was one there at the end," Tumnus agreed.

"Well, this is goodbye," Edmund announced, swallowing at a lump in his throat and sitting up a little straighter in his wheeled chair. "So long, Princess. Thank you for everything." With that, he, Tumnus, and Eustace pushed the little boat out to sea and watched it float away.

Aslan and Lucy watched from a distance, saying nothing. Lucy remembered what Aravir had told her about a funeral in which she would stand on the shore and watch a little boat float away with a dead person inside of it. At the time, she'd worried it might be Edmund; never had she suspected it would be Ammi. She also thought about another morning Aravir had seen and told her about.

A morning when she woke married to an affectionate cripple.

Aravir had said it would likely come to pass unless she did something different to change the outcome, or else _he_ did. Now that she knew Edmund was a cripple, she hadn't been able to stop wondering if he was the one the morning star had seen. It didn't seem very likely that she would meet _another_ cripple and fall in love. But what if he didn't want her? After all, the woman he _had_ wanted had just died.

Only, as she kept watching Edmund throughout the remainder of the day, she felt sorrier and sorrier for him. He looked sort of lonely, sitting in his wheeled chair, looking around blankly at the snow and the gray sky. She was practically _overcome_ with a need to look after him and perhaps try to cheer him up, if that wasn't too insensitive directly after a funeral.

It was nearly the twilit hour, which was still far more gray than it was purple in this country, when Lucy finally mustered up the courage to approach the side of his chair, crouching down beside it.

"Are you going to be all right?"

"I told you yesterday, Lu," he said, not unkindly. "I'm fine."

"I thought," she said softly, "with the funeral and everything..."

Edmund shook his head. "No, saying goodbye isn't hard when you've already let go. I'm sorry she never had a family, though. I keep thinking it's a shame."

"She did," said Lucy. "She had you. And Tumnus and Eustace, as well."

"Some family," he sighed. "Sometimes I think she was the most stable-minded out of the four of us." He chuckled lightly. "And you know that's not saying a lot."

"Ed?" Lucy looked at him with a concerned expression.

"Yes?"

"What are you going to do when you can leave Charn again?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I honestly don't know." Inhaling deeply, he added, "For the first time, there's no place I _have_ to go. No purpose to things. I was a Traitor for a long, long time. I wanted freedom, of course, but now that I have it...I just don't know what I'm going to do."

"What about _your_ family?"

"Well, you met my father," Edmund pointed out grimly. "I don't think I have to explain why I don't want to see if he has a spare room in that pathetic tent of his."

"So he _was_ your father," noted Lucy. "I thought so."

"I'm too scared I might just kill him," he said, only half-joking. "I'm still furious over what he tried to do to you."

Lucy reached up and touched his hand. "Don't be. I over-heard Tumnus talking to Eustace about it; it was _his_ suggestion that killed the witch, wasn't it?"

" _You_ killed the witch, Lu," Edmund reminded her. "With the arrows."

"Yes, but your father's advice made her powerless first." She bit her lower lip. "I think we'll have to forgive him, Ed."

"Aren't you angry with him?"

"I was, but I think it's passed." Lucy shuddered slightly. "To be completely honest, I think, after a while, I was more frightened than angry, and that was harder to get over."

He remembered her having nightmares about it on that porch in Terebinthia. "He doesn't scare me."

"He doesn't scare me anymore, either," said Lucy. "He's just a sick old man. I almost feel sorry for him sometimes." Then, "but, I say, Edmund, what about your mum?"

"What about her?"

"Don't you want to look for her?"

"No. Even if I _could_ , she'd be a stranger to me now. I was pretty small when she...Well, when I saw her last."

"You could come back to Narnia with me," Lucy blurted, her voice faltering and her cheeks going red. "Be part of my family again. Live with us all at the mansion."

He cocked his head at her. "What would Peter say?"

Lucy snorted and rolled her eyes. "He'll learn to love it."

He smiled at her, but it dimmed and didn't reach his eyes.

"What's the matter?"

"Oh." Edmund looked down at his lap. "I was just thinking it's a shame that we never actually got married." He squeezed her hand. "I would have been very lucky to have somebody like you. There aren't a whole lot of people who would do what you did."

Lucy didn't know what to say; her breath was caught in her throat. She didn't know where this was going. Was he wistfully bidding her-and whatever chance they might have once had if things had been different-goodbye? Or was he suggesting...asking her...

"You're going to make some fortunate nobleman very happy someday, Lu," he said, losing his nerve. They were friends now, nothing more. That was right, wasn't it?

So he wasn't asking her to marry him, then. At least, she didn't think so. But what he didn't know was that she couldn't imagine herself marrying any strange nobleman, before or after she became queen. There was only one young man she loved: the one who had put betrothal ink on her forehead during Aravis and Cor's wedding; the same one wore her snowdrop in his button-hole. There couldn't be anybody else, not for her.

"I don't..." Lucy stammered. "I mean, I don't know if I'd like that very much."

Edmund shifted in his chair awkwardly. "So what _does_ become of you after all this? Besides going back to Narnia and taking King Frank's throne when he leaves it?"

"I don't know," she said. "Things will be...quieter...I think...than I've gotten used to."

"You think it might be terribly lonesome?"

"Don't you?"

"Of course."

She thought of what Aravir said, about being able to change her future mornings. What if she asked Edmund directly if he would marry her or not while she still had the chance? If she didn't, she might unwittingly be changing something the morning star had seen and eventually live to regret it. Maybe, in time, she would even find it a bigger waste than endless life as one of Bacchus's girls might have been. And that would be a shame. She didn't want to wonder; she wanted to _know_.

"Do you think," Lucy forced herself to say, "it would be less lonesome if you...if I...I mean, no, if you would..." This wasn't going well; she had no idea what she was saying anymore, and yet she kept forcing it out, confusing word by confusing word.

"If I would marry you?" Edmund blurted out on impulse.

Lucy finally met his eyes. "I...well...I...yes?"

He squeezed her hand again. "Yes."

Neither of them were exactly sure which one of them had just asked for the other's hand in marriage, but they were so happy (along with being so dashed confused) that they both decided not to question it, even in their minds.

The wedding was held the following afternoon, by means of a small ceremony and speech given by Aslan himself.

For the ceremony, Lucy wore the silver dress with chain-mail sleeves, none the worse for being a little wrinkled and smelling uncommonly like the bottom of an old deerskin pack. And although there were no flowers in Charn, Aslan made both her and Edmund crowns of twigs which, when he breathed on them, turned to silver. Edmund's circlet grew little silver leaves, and Lucy's formed tiny silver rosebuds.

Because Edmund was still confined to his wheeled chair, Lucy knelt down, crouching on her knees, during Aslan's speech so that they could hold hands and be eye-to-eye.

Tumnus and Eustace were the only witnesses. And Eustace started making some rather loud sniffling noises when Aslan finally pronounced them man and wife.

"Eustace?" Tumnus looked at him funny.

"I'm not crying," he lied sharply. "I've got something in my eye."

"Yes," muttered the faun. "Tears."

"What was that?" Eustace frowned at him.

"Nothing." He looked away faux-innocently.

Needless to say, that night, Eustace moved out of the cabin on the right and into the left one with Tumnus, and Lucy brought her pack over to her new temporary home.

And, that evening, Lucy, sitting on the bed in the cabin in a white night-shirt that came down to her kneecaps, felt quite contented with everything that was happening, even if it was going by so fast that this was the first chance she'd had to really think it all over and catch her breath; but she couldn't help feeling a little sad for Edmund. She knew (or thought she knew) that the person he had truly wanted to marry was dead.

It wasn't that she thought he had married her simply for the sake of being married or that deep down he didn't really want to be her husband, it was more that she imagined it must be very hard losing one's first love. In her case, it was rather different; Edmund had been her first. She'd lost him and it had hurt terribly, but they had found their way back to each other and the wound mended. Edmund, Lucy thought sadly, would never get to have the wound his first romance left on him healed as hers was. There would always be an unfinished love story in him.

She hoped he understood that she didn't mean to try and take Ammi's place, that she would never grudge him his memories with her.

It was then that Edmund came into the room, pushing the tall wooden wheels of his chair forward so that they would bring him closer to the bed and he could climb off the seat and onto the mattress.

Lucy smiled at him, but she seemed a little distracted.

When he asked what she was thinking of, he got quite a surprise.

"Oh, by the Lion, that's right! You still don't know." He had taken it for granted that she did, simply because light had been shed onto all the other secrets of his past recently, never realizing that there was one thing more Lucy needed to be told.

She blinked at him and crinkled her forehead. "Know what, Ed?"

Where to start? He scooted a little closer to her and put an arm around her shoulders. "Well, remember, back at the mansion, when we were betrothed and you walked in on me and Ammi?"

"Yes," she replied, finding it odd he even had to ask. Who was going to forget something like _that_?

"Yeah, uh..." He winced apologetically. "I may have set that up."

"What?" Lucy almost shoved his arm away in shock but ended up just twisting her neck to look up into his face instead, possibly to try and figure out if he was joking.

"The empty honey jar wedged in the door was my idea," he confessed. "The wine was Ammi's."

"But why would you want to hurt me like that?" She swallowed and gave him a pained look. "What did I ever do to you?"

" _Nothing_!" exclaimed Edmund, giving her shoulders a light squeeze. "Don't you get it, Lu? I had to go back to Charn and betray you, I had a deadline. I thought if you hated me enough you wouldn't come after me."

"Oh, Edmund!" she blurted, incredulously. "So when you came to see me after..."

He nodded. "I thought it would be the last time."

"But you were in love with Ammi _before_ , weren't you?" asked Lucy, thinking of Paddy.

"Not in so many words..." Edmund stammered, wrinkling his nose as he tried to think of the best way to explain. "Or in _any_ , really..."

"I don't understand."

"Lucy, Paddy was my son, but I didn't..." His voice trailed off then picked back up. "...I didn't actually sire him."

"Then who did?"

"Some low-life Archenlander." It felt strange admitting this, even to Lucy-who was his wife now and deserved to know everything.

"What happened to him?"

His expression hardened. "Don't know, don't care."

Lucy sighed. "I see."

"The witch wanted to know who was to blame when Ammi started to show." Edmund looked down, a little embarrassed. "I lied for her."

"Those marks on your back," Lucy realized. "You got them for something you didn't even _do_."

He looked back at her again and nodded, forcing a small grin.

Lucy leaned into his grasp and kissed him on the lips.

Edmund removed his arm from her shoulders and slipped both arms round her waist instead, kissing her in return. He eased himself backwards and pulled her down along with him so that she was on top of him.

In between kisses, he whispered, "This position is familiar."

Lucy giggled, remembering how they landed similarly on the balcony and that other time on the floor in the entertainment room. "Edmund!"

"What?" he jested, reaching up and tucking a piece of her hair behind one of her ears. "It's true."

They locked lips again. Lucy moaned softly as she felt her husband's hand beginning to go up the bottom of her night-shirt as he continued kissing her. She felt his gentle, almost uncertain, touch, light as a triggerfish; on her thigh, on her belly, on the small of her back, on her chest.

"I love you," murmured Edmund, breaking away from her lips and pulling her as close to him as humanly possible.

Lucy started crying.

Alarmed, Edmund put his free hand on her cheek, brushing away her tears. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry," she wept-whispered; "it's just...that's the first time you actually _said_ that to me."

"Oh, Lucy..." He caressed her cheek, rubbing the side of her chin with his thumb.

"I love you, too, Ed." She locked her arms around the back of his neck.

He slipped his arms round her waist again, tightened his grasp, then rolled over so that he was on top of her now. She let go of his neck and he sat up for a moment to remove his shirt, then lowered himself back down.

Lucy lightly traced one of the whip-marks on his back near his shoulder with her middle and ring fingers. She pushed her neck upwards slightly and kissed the front side of the bare shoulder she was caressing with her fingertips. And Edmund, in turn, began kissing her neck; at first lightly, as he had at Aravis and Cor's wedding under her veil, the time she'd giggled and he'd stopped, then more firmly.

Outside, a sharp wind was blowing, making the tiny silver latches on the bay-window rattle.

"What was that?" Lucy whispered, her pupils sliding in the direction the faint pounding sound had come from.

"A small storm probably," Edmund murmured to her reassuringly. "Don't worry, they always sound like that here." He had been hearing noises like that on a fairly regular basis in Charn since he was quite small; such loud winds no longer fazed him.

The stormy wind was still raging in the morning when Lucy awoke with her forehead pressed against her husband's.

Opening his eyes, Edmund smiled at her. "Good morning."

"Good morning," she said back, reaching for his hand and intertwining her fingers with his.

"Do you want anything for breakfast, my love?"

Lucy blushed. "Yes, please."

"All right." He sat up. "Do me a favor and bring my chair round to this side of the bed, would you, Lu?"

"Of course." She planted a little kiss on one of his temples and got up, loosely retying the lacing at the front of her haphazardly tossed back on night-shirt and climbing out of bed.

Once Lucy had brought the chair over, Edmund scooted to the edge of the bed. Lucy held onto his arm and elbow as he eased down into the wheeled chair. Before she could pull herself up, he tilted his head and kissed her lingeringly on the mouth.

"What was that for?" she asked.

He grinned impishly. "What?" He widened his eyes with pretend shock. "I'm not allowed to say thank you when you help me?"

Lucy sighed happily. "You can thank me as much as you want, Ed."

"In that case," mused Edmund, reaching up and rubbing the side of her arm, "I think I need to make my appreciation a little more clear." He slid his hand slowly downwards until he reached her wrist and had wrapped his fingers around it, dragging her down to his level once more, kissing her again.

Lucy momentarily wondered if this was what Aravir had seen when she'd referred to her future crippled husband as 'affectionate'.

They fixed hard boiled eggs, buttered toast, and a few strips of bacon (or, rather, Edmund fixed them and Lucy was on hand to grab anything he couldn't reach since he was confined to his chair). It was a bit of a slow-going process because he seemed to feel the need to 'thank' her in a rather passionate manner every time she so much as handed him a silver-plated spatula or lifted the lid of the pot to check on the eggs, and they were both pretty hungry by the time it was done.

After they ate, they didn't bother with the dishes right away; Lucy put them in the sink and wheeled Edmund's chair to the window where they sat for a bit, drinking tea. At first, Lucy had been going to drag a chair from the other side of the room over and sit beside him, but Edmund said that was completely unnecessary and had her sit in his lap instead, wrapping an arm around the middle of her back and holding his teacup in the other hand.

"Edmund," asked Lucy curiously, gesturing at the blowing swirls of bee-sized snowflakes, "how long do you think the storm will last?"

"I hope this one lasts for ever," he replied softly.

It took her a second to figure it out, but from the expression on his face, Lucy gathered that he wasn't actually talking about the weather.


	37. In which Peter arrives in Charn

Because he was waiting for his feet to heal, Edmund didn't leave Charn with Tumnus and Eustace (Aslan had created a ship for their departure before taking his own leave from the cold, snowy country), and of course Lucy stayed behind with him.

Edmund wished his former accomplices the best of luck. He knew Eustace would be going to find Jill Pole the second that ship docked on the mainland of Narnia, and Tumnus had admitted, rather bashfully, that he thought he might very much like to go to the Ramandus' mansion and see how Clara was doing.

"I'm hoping," the faun had added, reddening, "you and Lucy will be able to be witnesses at _my_ wedding next."

Lucy had kissed them both and hugged them tightly by way of biding farewell, ignoring Eustace's annoyed mumble of, "Cousin-in-law, you're getting my clothes all wrinkled!"

After waving goodbye till the ship was long out of sight, Edmund had said, "It's freezing," and Lucy, agreeing, had taken his chair back inside where it was warm; and things went on as they had before, a little quieter, perhaps, now that Tumnus and Eustace were gone, but more or less the same otherwise.

It was hardly a week since they'd left when Peter arrived.

It was a particularly dark morning, though a little warmer than usual (that is, for _Charn_ ; anywhere else it still would have been considered bitterly cold), and Lucy was sitting in the bedroom by the bay-window with the curtains open so she could look out at the currently shadow-coloured snow mounds outside while sipping a cup of tea and nibbling on a biscuit. If Peter had passed by that way, she would have seen him and run out to greet him, but he didn't, going, instead, straight for the front door, which Edmund, in his wheeled chair, was currently closer to.

"Come in," he said, at hearing a knock, pushing the wheels closer to the door so he could see whoever it was as they entered. "It's not locked."

Peter, red-nosed and cross-looking, his eyes blood-shot, and specks of sleet in his hair, opened the door and walked in unsurely. "Hullo?"

"Hey, Pete."

He looked down and saw the familiar dark-headed boy sitting in a wheeled chair like a cripple. "You!" he exclaimed in disbelief.

"Nice to see you, too," said Edmund, flinching slightly. He was suddenly very thankful to be crippled; Peter wouldn't hit a fellow confined to a wheeled chair, but he might very well have knocked him down if he'd been able to stand.

"This is the first inhabited place I've found since I got here yesterday," he said in a tense, strained voice. "I found a castle in ruins, and there's nobody at the cabin on the left."

"That's right," said Edmund vaguely.

Peter scowled at him; he was done beating round the bush. "Hang it all! Where's Lucy?" he demanded loudly. "What have you done with her?"

That's right, Edmund thought, _he_ doesn't know why I left, either. Great, another person I have to explain everything to. Out loud, he said, "She's fine." He turned the chair around and pointed over towards the bedroom. "She's right in there. Honestly, I'm surprised she hasn't heard you shouting yet."

"She's safe?" Peter's breath caught in his throat like he scarcely dared to believe it.

"Yes," said Edmund, more gently, knowing how worried Peter must have been for his sister. "I know you don't trust me, but-"

Peter cut him off. "That's right, I don't." Then he walked into the bedroom. "Lu?"

Lucy, lost in her thoughts, listening to the wild blowing of the wind and inhaling the smell of peppermint steaming up from her tea, turned her head and blinked at her brother in shock for a few seconds, unable to register that he was really and truly there in the flesh.

"Oh, Lucy!" he cried, running over to her. "I'm so sorry. I only wanted to protect you."

"Peter!" She jumped up and threw her arms around her brother's waist. "I missed you so much."

He stroked his little sister's hair and held her close. "Oh, thanks be to the Lion!"

"What are you doing here?" Lucy laughed, pulling away.

"I came after you," said Peter, a little pathetically. "It was hard going, finding you. Charn isn't exactly on the map. I was so scared you would be hurt or lost, or starved, or worse."

"I'm sorry you worried," said Lucy, "but I'm perfectly well." She added, "I sent word to you by Tumnus and Eustace about a week ago, but I guess you were on your way long before then."

"But, Lucy, what were you thinking, leaving your horse behind at the inn? Eh?" Peter had to know. "Snowflake would be pinning away, if the demented creature didn't love oats so blasted well."

It was true, Lucy was only the _second_ great love of that horse's life, oats was the first. "I knew I couldn't take a horse over the water with me, and some places in the forest were too dense."

"That's true," Peter had to admit.

"But what about you?" Lucy asked. "Tell me about how you got here."

He did so, from start to finish, leaving out only one thing-something she didn't understand.

"If Susan was with you, shouldn't she be here now?"

Peter hung his head.

"What happened?" Lucy felt her face falling.

"Lu, did you by any chance meet a chap called Bacchus on the way here?"

"Yes," she said. "He gave me a silver dress and helmet. Aravir, the morning star, is friends with his girls."

"Well, so did Susan."

"Oh no." Lucy's eyes widened. "Not _Su_. She's too sensible for that."

"That's what I thought," said Peter sadly. "But she changed so much and so suddenly. When I told her I wanted to leave, she said was staying with the other girls. I was confused, because before that she'd been so set on finding you together, her and me. We both wanted to make sure you were safe, and to apologize for what we did, but all of a sudden she didn't care about anything but dancing and invitations to feasts. I know she wasn't under a spell-I could read her mind, it was all there, yet... I don't know. But I lost her there and had to go on alone the rest of the way."

Lucy put her hand on her brother's shoulder. "Bacchus doesn't have boys, but he'll let you visit her. Maybe she can even come to the mansion sometimes."

"She isn't the same, Lu," he said, shaking his head. "How did _you_ keep from being persuaded when you were with Bacchus?"

"Aravir helped me." Then she blushed. "And I was really set on rescuing Edmund."

"Well, the morning star wasn't there during _our_ stay." Peter sighed heavily. "As for Edmund, let's get back to that now. It doesn't look like he needed much rescuing." He gave the room a quick overview, fairly impressed. "Seems like he had a nice enough home here to run off to after leaving you. The climate is too cold, perhaps, but otherwise, it's grand enough."

"No, you don't understand," Lucy began.

But Peter noticed something else: there was only one bed in the room. "Lu, is this the only bedroom?"

Lucy nodded, not picking up on his meaning. "Yes, why?"

"It's yours?" Peter asked.

"And Edmund's," Lucy replied honestly, in all innocence.

"I see." His eyes narrowed.

And, unfortunately, Edmund picked that exact moment to enter the room on his wheeled chair.

Peter gave him such a nasty facial expression that it would probably have struck him down dead in a heartbeat if only looks could kill.

"Somebody's in a bad mood," Edmund commented under his breath, but still loudly enough that both Peter and Lucy heard what he said quite clearly.

"Don't push me," Peter warned him. "This is all your fault, you two-timing cowardly con-artist."

Lucy frowned. "Peter, you're my brother and I love you, but if you speak to my husband like that again, I'll show you to the door."

Peter crinkled his forehead, the fire going out of his eyes. "Wait... Husband?"

Lucy struggled against a demented little smile and nodded.

"Lu, you remember he left the mansion _before_ you could get married, right?"

"No, Peter," Lucy laughed, clearing up the misunderstanding. "We were married _here_ , in Charn. By Aslan."

Peter shook his head, greatly confused. "I think you'll need to back up a bit, Lu. I'm not following this at all."

It took hours to tell her story completely, omitting no important details, but it was well worth the effort because when she had finished Peter no longer wanted to kill Edmund, he looked forgiving of him as well as a little sorry for all he'd gone through.

"I wish I'd known you were trying to protect her by leaving," Peter said to Edmund at last. "If only you could have told me _something_! But I suppose the witch would have impeded that. I'm awful sorry for assuming the worst of you, Edmund."

"That's all right," Edmund told him. "I'm sorry you had to come all this way."

"Friends?" Peter offered his hand for Edmund to shake.

He shook it, grinning. It would be nice, finally having his brother-in-law for a friend instead of a reluctant enemy.

It was settled that, for the time being, Peter could take the cabin on the left, since it was currently empty anyway. He hadn't worked out how long he would stay, whether or not he would wait for Edmund's feet to heal and travel back with his sister and brother-in-law, but there was no hurry. Aside from Susan having become one of Bacchus's madcap girls, everything seemed to be falling back into place.

"Aren't you coming to bed?" Lucy asked her husband that night, seeing him fiddling with a quill-pen, passing the feather in and out of the spaces between his fingers, his wheeled chair pulled up to the table in the bedroom.

Lost in thought, Edmund blinked and murmured, "Mmm?" Then, registering what she had said, "I'll be there later, Lucy-Lu, I'm not feeling very tired right now."

"All right." She put her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Lu." Edmund looked down at the quill-pen in his hand again. He was thinking about the bonfire, when he wouldn't read that fairytale aloud.

There was just one thing more-one story-he needed to come to terms with before he turned his back on his traitorous past for ever and started anew.

And what better way to do so than to write it in the form of in a letter to his wife?


	38. Fairytales & Dim Memories

Lucy awoke because she thought she heard rain. Rain, here in Charn-where it was almost always either sleeting or snowing?

Blinking and rubbing her eyes, she strained her ears for the familiar _tap-tap_ sound, sure she would hear the drops against the window any second.

She heard nothing; the rain that had woken her wasn't real, it was only the remainder of an already forgotten dream. All lost, except for the rain, which she had taken to be real.

Realizing her mistake, Lucy sat up; she couldn't fall back asleep now. Beside her, Edmund dozed soundly, for the first time in a long while he could enter into sleep without fear of the white, cold, vengeful hands of his own personal ghosts and demons, the old lingering nightmares, reaching out and grasping him in his slumber. He had been having less and less bad dreams since their wedding night. They would never fully go away, but they couldn't hurt him anymore.

There were no actual shadows in the room now because the room itself was cast into a single shadow-or, rather, it looked as if it _was_ the shadow-all except for the sliver of moonlight seeping in through the bay-window. The curtains had not been drawn all the way and the moon was full.

Had Edmund, who had come to bed long after she'd already been asleep, forgotten to close the curtains, or had he left them that way on purpose?

Regardless, Lucy felt compelled to slowly rise out of bed, careful not to wake him.

On the desk by the window, right under where the light of the silver-white moon fell, was a book, a faded leather journal. Lucy had seen it many times before, though not recently. It was Edmund's, the same one he had once written and crossed out the names of betrayed demistars in, the same one she'd taken with her on her journey to Charn to find him.

This book lay open, the smell of semi-fresh ink still hovered in the stale air around the table.

Edmund must have been writing something new on one of the blank pages, she realized, before he came to bed.

Somehow, perhaps because it was left open, right where it could be seen, Lucy got the idea that she was meant to see whatever it was he had written. She had the nagging doubt that maybe he'd just been letting the ink dry, but there was something in her that insisted this was not the case.

Creeping over, each footstep light but impossibly slow, like cold molasses spilled over the edge of a dinner table, Lucy approached the book.

When she reached it, she bent over it and leaned forward to read the sharply scrawled letters her husband had left on the page.

_Lucy, I thought it was time I made up for refusing to read a fairytale out loud at that_ _village bonfire so long ago._

_The story you would have had me read was 'Sun and Moon, and Talia'._

_Truth is, I couldn't do the one in that book justice anyway, and it made me feel sad and angry._

_I have my own version, and here it is._

_Once upon a time, there was a woman who got a poison splinter in her finger. She was put in a chamber room that was locked, I don't know why. And an embittered Traitor broke in and raped her while she lay unconscious._

_She had a baby. The scoundrel who sired it didn't know, he was long gone. The baby wasn't anything like the sun or the moon, he was dark-headed and dark-hearted and, more importantly, he was hungry. And there was no one to feed him._

_He sucked helplessly on his mother's finger._

_The woman awoke._

_She was disgusted with herself and absolutely loathed the baby. She rarely spoke to the baby, she only half-looked at him most of the time. But he grew, and somehow or other he learned to recognize his name, which the woman somehow found time to give him._

_The baby lived maybe four years or so trying to stay out of her sight. Of course he wasn't a baby anymore; he was a bitter, pig of a boy, and a bully besides. He would have punched you and bloodied your nose if you suggested he was lonely. But late at night, though you'd never imagine it of him, he would cry to himself because he knew you were right. You had a bloody nose, but someone who loved you would clean it up and comfort you. No one would come in to comfort him or even to punish him for using his fist in so violent a manner._

_One morning the former baby is taken for a morning walk after breakfast. He doesn't want to go and tries to make the time as difficult for his mother as possible. As usual, she doesn't notice._

_Then she takes him through an iron gate to a painfully well-manicured lawn, in front of a new, crude stone mansion._

_She drops his hand like it's a hot coal and flees._

_He is alone._

_Something snickers._

_He is_ not _alone._

_There is another little boy there, playing on the lawn, younger than he is. He doesn't need to be told this fair-haired toddler with a smug narrow face and pompous arched light eyebrows is his cousin, he just knows at once._

_The cousin thinks he can be the boss. It's his house after all, his lawn. There are dozens of ways to give people a bad time when you are in your own home and they are just guests, he thinks._

_Unwanted guests, at that._

_But the boy isn't going to have any of that. No, he is the alpha dog (later, wolf) in this lawn, whoever it belongs to._

_Growling like an animal, the boy pushes his cousin down and bites his right ear as hard as he can._

_The cousin whimpers._

_The boy grins triumphantly. He knows he's won. He's secured an ass to work under him for the rest of his life. His cousin will never abandon him as his mother did, but he will not ill-use him either. No, the cousin won't try that again; he isn't so stupid as he looks._

_Green mist swirls around the boy and the cousin with teethmarks and visible blood on one ear._

_There is no cook come to save them, offering up dead lambs in their place._

_They are swallowed up completely._

Lucy looked over her shoulder at Edmund. What did this story mean? Was this an actual recounting of how Edmund had become a traitor for the white witch after his mother abandoned him? Or was it merely his interpretation of the old fairytale he'd refused to read aloud mixed with his own, possibly dimming, earliest childhood memories? And why was this one story he choose not to tell her verbally but, rather, to write out?

It didn't matter.

Sighing, she crept on tipped-toes back to the bed and pulled herself close to him. Planting a little kiss on his temple, she whispered, "Even a traitor may mend, I've known one who has."

In his sleep, Edmund's expression grew very thoughtful.


End file.
